Micron: an actively stabilized handheld tool for microsurgery - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Micron: an actively stabilized handheld tool for microsurgery

Robert MacLachlan, Brian Becker, Jaime Cuevas Tabares, Gregg Podnar, Louis Lobes, and Cameron Riviere
Journal Article, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 195 - 212, February, 2012

Abstract

We describe the design and performance of a handheld actively stabilized tool to increase accuracy in micro-surgery or other precision manipulation. It removes involuntary motion such as tremor by actuating the tip to counteract the effect of the undesired handle motion. The key components are a threedegree- of-freedom piezoelectric manipulator that has 400 μm range of motion, 1 N force capability, and bandwidth over 100 Hz, and an optical position measurement subsystem that acquires the tool pose with 4 μm resolution at 2000 samples/s. A control system using these components attenuates hand motion by at least 15 dB (a fivefold reduction). By considering the effect of the frequency response of Micron on the human visual feedback loop, we have developed a filter that reduces unintentional motion, yet preserves intuitive eye-hand coordination. We evaluated the effectiveness of Micron by measuring the accuracy of the human/machine system in three simple manipulation tasks. Handheld testing by three eye surgeons and three non-surgeons showed a reduction in position error of between 32% and 52%, depending on the error metric.

BibTeX

@article{MacLachlan-2012-7439,
author = {Robert MacLachlan and Brian Becker and Jaime Cuevas Tabares and Gregg Podnar and Louis Lobes and Cameron Riviere},
title = {Micron: an actively stabilized handheld tool for microsurgery},
journal = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics},
year = {2012},
month = {February},
volume = {28},
number = {1},
pages = {195 - 212},
keywords = {Medical robotics, optical tracking, piezoelectric devices, compensation},
}