A Teleoperated Robotic System with Haptic Feedback for Soft Tissue Incision

The teleoperation of robotic manipulators allows extending the capabilities of human operators to work in different scales and distances to improve the efficiency of tasks that require high precision and repeatability. However, the lack of kinesthetics makes teleoperation difficult under diminished visibility or during palpation tasks despite visual and auditory feedback. This work presents the design and implementation of a haptic teleoperation system based on a master–slave hybrid control scheme. The robotic system uses a haptic device and a joystick to map the desired pose of the robot, while a force sensor located in the end-effector provides stiffness perception. The implemented control algorithm employs a weighted quadratic program to compute the inverse kinematics at different scales, allowing the system to operate over delicate and uneven surfaces, such as those found in surgical incisions. Finally, experimental results are shown, where the performance of the haptic system in cutting porcine tissue and manipulation tasks inside the free workspace are discussed.