A Novel Four-Degree-of-Freedom versus a Conventional Foot Interface for Controlling a Robotic Assistive Arm

Foot-based teleoperation can provide the user with hands-free control of a robotic assistive arm without interrupting the ongoing task in various potential industrial and medical applications. In this paper, a foot interface (FI) was adapted to control a robotic camera holder in laparoscopic surgery, where surgeons are in direct contact with patients, and their hands are occupied. A novel four degrees of freedom FI with intuitive two-level rate-based control and vibrotactile feedback is proposed. A comparative study was conducted between the proposed FI and a conventional FI with binary switches on a planar surface. The experiment includes a follow-the-command test and a peg-and-holes test. Results showed that our FI was less mentally tiring with shorter task completion time and fewer visual checks. A suitably designed FI is a good candidate for controlling a robotic assistive arm in surgical applications.