System Design and Simulation Experiments of a Virtual Reality Based Tele-operated Surgical Robot System

Robot-assisted surgery (RAS) has become the development trend of surgical operation due to its advantages of small trauma and fast postoperative recovery. A master-slave surgical robot system usually includes a master console and several patient-side manipulators with robotic instruments at the end. Although existing master manipulators have been designed ergonomically, surgeon still could experience physical symptoms, fatigue or discomfort. Therefore, intuitiveness, comfort and cost are worth considering. In this paper, a minimally invasive surgical robot system based on Virtual Reality (VR) tracking system and Robot Operating System (ROS) is proposed to provide a novel master method. In addition, the flexible robot instruments of the surgical robot is presented and master-slave interactive control research based on handle controllers is shown. Finally, simulation verification with VR hardware is carried out. The experiment results verified the availability and stability.