Force feedback on hand rest function in master manipulator for robotic surgery

In robotic surgeries employing the master-slave operation scheme, various haptic devices have been adopted as master manipulators. The main challenge of the haptic device is to contribute to a sensitive reaction to external forces for operators. Since force perception on fingertips is impaired by unstable entire hand condition, stable hand condition helps to improve force perception. This study proposed a master manipulator that enables a force feedback at the gripping fingertips on a stable hand condition with a hand rest function. In this framework, the hand rest function was realized by switching the impedance value in admittance control for the translation section of the master manipulator and the displaying force was generated based on the pivot point, which depends on only the movement of the translation section. With master-slave operation, an 8-drawing experiment was performed under multiple force feedback and hand conditions after evaluating the effectiveness of a hand rest on sensitivity for external force in a preliminary experiment. The results showed that the hand rest function contributed to effective force feedback.