title: Development of safe mechanism for surgical robots using equilibrium point control method.
abstract: This paper introduces a novel mechanism for surgical robotic systems to generate human arm-like compliant motion. The mechanism is based on the idea of the equilibrium point control hypothesis which claims that multi-joint limb movements are achieved by shifting the limbs' equilibrium positions defined by neuromuscular activity. The equilibrium point control can be implemented on a robot manipulator by installing two actuators at each joint of the manipulator, one to control the joint position, and the other to control the joint stiffness. This double-actuator mechanism allows us to arbitrarily manipulate the stiffness (or impedance) of a robotic manipulator as well as its position. Also, the force at the end-effector can be estimated based on joint stiffness and joint angle changes without using force transducers. A two-link manipulator and a three-link manipulator with the double-actuator units have been developed, and experiments and simulation results show the potential of the proposed approach. By creating the human arm-like behavior, this mechanism can improve the performance of robot manipulators to execute stable and safe movement in surgical environments by using a simple control scheme.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Anam-dong, Sungbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea. drsspark@korea.ac.kr
authors.forename: Shinsuk
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Hokjin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Byeong-sang
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jae-bok
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D040761:Biomimetic Materials; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D004869:Equipment Safety / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods