Impedance Control Design System for Teleoperated Microsurgery

The design and fabrication of milli-teleoperated robots for remote surgery requires the development of new design concepts which are different from those employed in macro-scale systems. Two key differences are the scale of the interaction forces and the required response characteristics of the force-reflecting systems. Previous researchers have shown that impedance-based control systems for telerobots provide passivity and guarantee stability in the presence of time delays (which are the primary cause of limited performance for teleoperated robots). The innovation we propose is a telerobot control system design tool that will enable the rapid development of impedance-based control systems for motion and force scaling telerobots in the presence of time delays. The proposed control system design tool will use descriptions of master and slave manipulator hardware, the communications link, and the required level of motion and force scaling in order to facilitate the generation of controllers for both the master and slave manipulators. During Phase I of this project, we will demonstrate the use of the proposed hierarchidal control system architecture using a haptic display and computer-generated remote manipulator and communications link. During Phase II, we will develop a prototype telerobotic system employing the proposed control algorithm. The proposed control development system will have immediate application for the design of telerobotic systems used in microscopic manipulation. Examples include: vascular microsurgery, manipulation of individual cells, the interrogation of atomic surfaces, and the inspection and repair of micro-mechanical or electrical devices.