Assessment of a Commercial Virtual Reality Controller for Telemanipulation of an Articulated Robotic Arm

Recently, there has been a strong emergence of teleoperated minimally invasive surgery due to the potential benefits for both, the surgeon's performance and outcomes for the patient. However, due to high acquisition costs, no widespread use has been achieved so far. The use of low-cost components can help to address this issue. In this paper, a commercial handheld virtual reality controller as an unconventional and versatile approach for the input device, is presented and investigated. Assessment of the input device is done by performing an experimental study with 24 participants on two different fine motoric tasks. Additionally, motion scaling is investigated by using different transmission ratios for the user's movements. The large and unrestricted range of motion of the presented input device showed to be a promising alternative to conventional input devices. However, the tasks showed room for improvement regarding the controller's ergonomics and usability. For further comparative investigations, conventional input devices and mimetic input devices need to be considered.