The RAMS (Robot-Assisted Micro-Surgery) system has been developed to utilize NASA telerobotics technology in a beneficial commercial application. JPL has developed a precision cable-driven master-and-slave telerobotic system for eye surgery and teamed with an industrial partner to test and commercialize the technology. The system provides scaled-down human-input motions, tremor filtering to improve precision, amplified forces fed back to the human operator, and programmable constrained motion of the instrument in the eye to minimize surgical impacts. The slave robot, which manipulates a tool in the eye, has 6 actuated degrees of freedom (DOFs), 6-DOF tip-force sensing, and 15-micron positioning accuracy. The master robot, held by the surgeon, has 6 position and 6 force-sensed DOFs, 3 actuated DOFs, and 25-micron tip-position measurement accuracy.
Fig. 1a: RAMS master and slave arms.
Fig. 1b: RAMS master and slave arms.
