Development of a Master Slave System with Force Sensing Using Pneumatic Servo System for Laparoscopic Surgery

In the teleoperated minimally invasive surgery systems, measurement and display of sense of force to the operator is a problem. In this paper, a manipulator for supporting forceps has been developed which has 3-DOFs actuated by pneumatic cylinders. We also developed a master manipulator using a delta mechanism and a gimbal mechanism with a force sensor and motors with reduction gears. In the developed master-slave system, we applied different impedance control to each manipulator. The force control type of impedance control is adopted without force sensor for the pneumatic slave manipulator. For the master manipulator the motion control type of impedance control is implemented. The experimental results indicated that the operator could feel the force at the slave side to a satisfactory extent.