A Master-Follower Teleoperation System for Robotic Catheterisation: Design, Characterisation and Tracking Control

Over the past 2 decades, telerobotic systems with robot-mediated, minimally invasive techniques, have mitigated radiation exposure for medical staff and extended medical services to remote areas. To enhance these services, master-follower telerobotic systems should offer transparency, enabling surgeons and clinicians to feel force interactions similar to those the follower device experiences with patients' bodies.

We present a three-degree-of-freedom master-follower teleoperated system for robotic catheterisation. The follower device uses a grip-insert-release mechanism to prevent catheter buckling and torsion, mimicking real-world manual intervention. Performance is evaluated through open-loop path tracking on circular, infinity-like and spiral paths.

Path tracking errors, mean Euclidean error (MEE) and mean absolute error (MAE), range from 0.64 to 1.53 cm (MEE) and 0.81-1.92 cm (MAE) for different paths.

While the system meets precision and accuracy targets with an open-loop controller, closed-loop control is needed to address catheter hysteresis, dead zones and nonlinearities.