Haptic feedback control in medical robots through fractional viscoelastic tissue model.

In this paper, we discuss the design of an adaptive control system for robot-assisted surgery with haptic feedback. Through a haptic device, the surgeon teleoperates the medical instrument in free space, fixed on a remote robot or in contact. In free space, the surgeon feels the motion of the robot. In the present paper, we evaluated the performance of the controller on viscoelastic tissue, modeled by a fractional derivative equation. In addition, we propose a novel controller using an integer formalization process that is suitable for these tissue properties. The simulation results suggested that performance, in terms of force control and telepresence, became poorer when the conventional controller, which was designed for elastic target object, was applied to the viscoelastic tissues. In contrast, the results suggested that our proposed controller maintained its performance on the viscoelastic tissues.