Abstract :
This paper presents a control strategy for surgical interventions, applied on a human-robot cooperative system, which facilitates the sharing of responsibilities between surgeon and robot. The controller utilizes virtual fixtures to constrain the movements of the end-effector into a predefined path or region. Possible deviation error can be compensated in two different ways: (a) manual compensation and (b) autonomous compensation. With manual compensation, the system defines both virtual fixtures and error compensation directions, but the surgeon must apply manual forces himself/herself in order to generate end-effector motion. With autonomous compensation, a clear distribution of responsibilities between surgeon and robotic system is present, meaning the surgeon has complete control of the end-effector along the preferred directions, while the robot autonomously compensates for any deviation along the non-preferred directions.
