Control Design and Task Performance in Endoscopic Tele-Operation

Endoscopic surgery, while offering considerable gains for the patient, has created new difficulties for the surgeon. One problem is the fulcrum effect, which causes the movement of a surgical instrument, as seen on the monitor, to be in the opposite direction to the movement of the surgeon's hand. The problem has been shown to impede the acquisition of endoscopic skills. Teleoperated robotic arms may circumvent this problem by allowing different control-response relations. Four alternative control designs of a teleoperated device were compared in a simulated endoscopic task. A rigid teleoperated robotic arm with two degrees of freedom representing a surgical tool was coupled to a joystick in a position control mode. Feedback was provided through a video display. Participants without prior experience in endoscopy performed a target acquisition task, first by pointing the robotic arm at the targets, and later by maneuvering an object. Performance was measured under four different c...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2000
• Where: PRESENCE
• Authors: Ori Ben-Porat, Moshe Shoham, Joachim Meyer
• Keywords: PRESENCE 2000, Robotic Arm, Teleoperated, Visual-motor Mapping