Feasibility Study of Finger Interface for Miniature Surgical Instruments

This paper presents a study on the design of a finger interface to improve the teleoperation of a miniaturized surgical instrument with a bendable distal section. A unique design principle employing the kinematic similarity between the human motion and the follower robot has been proposed for such instruments, which may result in embodied teleoperation, enhancing the overall telepresence experience. According to the principle, a design for an index finger interface was proposed, consisting of a sub-unit measuring finger motion and a handle. When the interface is connected to a robotic platform, it can control the entire tool motion in two separate ways: distal bending by the sub-unit and overall tool motion by the handle. A human subject test was conducted for trajectory-following tasks in a virtual environment, and their performance score was quantified for analysis of the learning curve. Based on the satisfactory learning rate of 75.78% for all nine subjects, the proposed finger interface could be a promising interface for a miniature surgical instrument with a long bendable section at the distal end.