ParaMaster: Design and Experimental Characterizations of a Haptic Device for Surgical Teleoperation

Abstract

A multi-DoF (Degrees of Freedom) haptic device is a crucial module in a teleoperation-based surgical robotic system. Numerous haptic devices have been developed for a surgeon to teleoperate slave surgical manipulators. However, these research prototypes can be arduous to reproduce outside the original lab, while the commercially available products are often quite expensive. To fulfill the need of affordable haptic devices for a teleoperated laparoscopic surgical system, a new master haptic device, the ParaMaster, with a parallelogram structure, is proposed in this study. The ParaMaster design is based on affordable direct drive motors and with 6-DoF inputs and 6-DoF outputs. The design concept, kinematics, dimension optimization, gravity compensation, design description and preliminary experimental verifications are elaborated. The ParaMaster is expected to be integrated into a laparoscopic surgical system after receiving full calibrations of its motion sensing and wrench outputs capabilities in the near future.