Haptic feedback control in medical robots through fractional viscoelastic tissue model

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Control Systems
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Robot-assisted surgery enhances precision and minimally invasive techniques.
• Haptic feedback systems are crucial for surgeons to "feel" interactions during remote procedures.
• Existing controllers struggle with the complex mechanical properties of biological tissues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate an adaptive control system for robot-assisted surgery with haptic feedback.
• To address the limitations of conventional controllers when interacting with viscoelastic biological tissues.
• To propose a novel controller optimized for the properties of viscoelastic tissues.

Main Methods:

• Development of an adaptive control system for robot-assisted surgery.
• Modeling of viscoelastic tissue using fractional derivative equations.
• Design of a novel controller employing an integer formalization process.
• Simulation-based performance evaluation of the proposed controller against a conventional controller.

Main Results:

• Conventional controllers designed for elastic targets showed degraded performance on viscoelastic tissues.
• The proposed novel controller maintained consistent performance on viscoelastic tissues.
• Improved force control and telepresence were observed with the novel controller on viscoelastic tissues.

Conclusions:

• The novel adaptive control system is effective for robot-assisted surgery on viscoelastic tissues.
• The integer formalization process is suitable for controlling interactions with complex tissue properties.
• This advancement has the potential to enhance surgical precision and surgeon immersion in robotic procedures.