A six degree of freedom micromanipulator for ophthalmic surgery

Needs which have arisen in ophthalmic research have motivated the development of a six-degree-of-freedom parallel micromanipulator. The first application of the tool will be in the treatment of retinal venous occlusion, for which micron-scale spherical movement of a glass micropipette tip inside the eye is required. The initial operation mode will be open loop, while future operation will be in a force-reflecting bilateral (macro-master/micro-slave) arrangement. Presented here are some of the design criteria, the mathematical tools used in evaluating various parallel manipulator designs, and the final kinematic configuration.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>