Real-time control and evaluation of a teleoperated miniature arm for Single Port Laparoscopy

This paper presents the control architecture and the first performance evaluation results of a novel and highly-dexterous 18 degrees of freedom (DOF) miniature master/slave teleoperated robotic system called SPRINT (Single-Port la-paRoscopy bimaNual roboT). The system was evaluated in terms of positioning accuracy, repeatability, tracking error during local teleoperation and end-effector payload. Moreover, it was experimentally verified that the control architecture is real-time compliant at an operating frequency of 1 kHz and it is also reliable in terms of safety. The architecture accounts for cases when the robot is lead through singularities, and includes other safety mechanisms, such as supervision tasks and watchdog timers. Peliminary tests that were performed by surgeons in-vitro suggest that the SPRINT robot, along with its real-time control architecture, could become in the near future a reliable system in the field of Single Port Laparoscopy.