Preliminary experiments in cooperative human/robot force control for robot assisted microsurgical manipulation

This paper reports preliminary experiments with a new robot system designed to cooperatively extend a human's ability to perform fine manipulation tasks requiring human judgement, sensory integration and hand-eye coordination. A recently completed steady-hand robot is reported. A stable force control law is reviewed. Preliminary experiments validate theoretical predictions of stable one-dimensional control of tool-tip forces in contact with both linearly and nonlinearly compliant objects. Preliminary feasibility experiments demonstrate stable one-dimensional robotic augmentation and 'force scaling' of a human operator's tactile input.