Haptic interface for robot-assisted ophthalmic surgery

Vitreo-retinal surgery is challenging, as delicate structures have to be manipulated. Eliminating tremor caused by human motions when doing micromanipulation can therefore improve the outcome of such an intervention. An eye surgery robot has been built to overcome this problem. The contribution of this paper is the design of a telemanipulation setup for the robotic system. A telemanipulation setup using a haptic device featuring force feedback as a user interface for controlling a hybrid parallel-serial micromanipulator is designed and developed. The position error control scheme is chosen and different control modes are provided. The output forces of the haptic device are analyzed. The system allows the surgeon to perform precise and comfortable micromanipulation. Nevertheless a way to provide more meaningful force feedback still has to be found.