Leader manipulator with hand rest function for microsurgery

BACKGROUND: Hand rest assists microsurgeons with maintaining a stable hand condition. In manipulating a surgical robot using teleoperation, the external hand rest poses mechanical difficulties such as interferences from manipulators. METHODS: Herein, we introduced hand rest functionality into a leader manipulator. The hand rest function was realised by switching the impedance value in admittance control for the translation section. With teleoperation, we evaluated the positioning accuracy in the direction of gravity and the manipulating conditions during precise positioning. RESULTS: The experiments proved that the position of the hand rest could be arranged at the intended position, and the condition with the hand rest function, applying sufficiently high impedance, and not constraining the hand rest completely provided the best performance. CONCLUSION: Our leader manipulator showed the potentials to improve the quality of robotic microsurgery with the advantage in fine manipulation based on large repositionable working range of the hand rest.