Haptically augmented teleoperation

Concerns telerobotic microsurgery. Existing systems offer tremor elimination and scaling of motions. This article goes beyond the strict master/slave scheme to the enhancement of the operator's capabilities during teleoperation. It is focused on the implementation of three types of constraints for the operators' movements: constrained movement (along a curve or on a predefined surface); virtual obstacle avoidance; and geometric constraints to limit the robots workspace. Constraints for the operator's movements can be implemented mechanically. Our approach uses a haptic master robot, and consists in adding constraint forces to its control scheme. Constraint forces are computed according to attractive or repulsive potential fields placed around constraints. This article presents the principles of these control enhancements which, we believe, will raise dramatically the level of safety and precision that a surgeon can achieve, but those principles can also be applied to a wide variety of teleoperation applications.