Haptic tele-manipulation for robotic-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery with explicit posture control

This paper discusses the design of a control system for robotic-assisted Minimal Invasive Surgery. Adaptive control, feedback linearization and operational space techniques are used to develop a tele-manipulation system with haptic force feedback. The operational space control has a position-position tele-operation architecture with a haptic device in the loop. The medical instrument end point position is controlled by the surgeon while the robot posture is automatically adjusted to fulfill both instrument end point and trocar positions. Force feedback is felt by the surgeon through a virtual coupling. Explicit posture control techniques are used to deal with trocar constraints. Simulation results were carried out using the WAM^™ robot simulator and the Phantom Desktop haptic device.