A Microsurgical Robotic System that Induces a Multisensory Illusion

Abstract

Intuitiveness in robotic surgery is highly desirable when performing highly elaborate surgical tasks using surgical master–slave systems (MSSs), such as suturing. To increase the operability of such systems, the time delay of the system response, haptic feedback, and eye–hand coordination are the issues that have received the most attention. In addition to these approaches, we propose a surgical robotic system that induces a multisensory illusion. In our previous study, we reported that a robotic instrument we devised enhances the multisensory illusion. In this paper, we determine the requirements for inducing this multisensory illusion in a multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) MSS, and the first stage of prototype implementation based on the given requirements is described.