2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2021)

May 31 - June 4, 2021, Xi'an, China

Design and Control of Fully Handheld Microsurgical Robot for

Active Tremor Cancellation
2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) | 978-1-7281-9077-8/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICRA48506.2021.9561200

Eunchan Kim, Ingu Choi, and Sungwook Yang, Member, IEEE


0F

Abstract—This paper presents the design and control of a

fully handheld robot for robot-assisted microsurgery. The
handheld robot incorporates a miniature 6-PUS parallel
micromanipulator that can impose a remote center of motion
(RCM) at the incision point of entry during microsurgery. An
optimization framework is formulated to determine the
geometric parameters of the micromanipulator. The
optimization aims to minimize force applied on actuation
modules by lateral load at the RCM. The optimization yields a
base diameter of 16 mm, a top diameter of 12.6 mm, and a
connecting link of 9.4 mm, which offers a cylindrical workspace
4-mm wide and 3-mm high with a 5-mm travel in linear
actuation. An order of magnitude higher force capability is
attained in the smaller form factor compared to the latest
handheld micromanipulator. We built the fully handheld Figure 1. Handheld microsurgical robot with a 6-PUS parellel mechanism.
version of the microsurgical robot by incorporating embedded
electronics and an EM tracker for sensing the 6-DOF pose of
hand motion. The real-time control framework of the handheld microns, not millimeters. Pivot points of surgical instruments,
robot is also presented, including motion filter for active tremor or remote center of motion (RCM), also differ from those of
cancellation. As a result, the handheld robot can tolerate side typical laparoscopic surgery, which makes the adoption of
loads up to 5.0 N for a lateral load applied at the RCM without commercial laparoscopic robots difficult [1]. Potential risks
significant degradation in control. Finally, the robot-aided are also involved with conventional surgical robots that have a
operation with the active tremor cancellation shows a significant large range of motion and high inertia. Furthermore, reliable
peak-force reduction compared to unaided operation during the direct force feedback from these systems is not currently
task of maintaining contact force. available yet.
I. INTRODUCTION To address these issues in microsurgery, various robotic
platforms have been introduced, and their clinical translation
Robot-assisted microsurgery has become a focus of
has been gradually increasing. Most common platforms,
research, as robotic platforms offer a number of potential
based on teleoperation, allow surgeons to remotely control
improvements over unassisted human hands. For example,
patient-side slave robots via the manipulation of wristed
surgical robots enable tremor filtration, motion scaling, and
instruments that are anthropomorphically-aligned to the
dexterity enhancement with extremely high precision in
surgical scene [4]. The world’s first robot-assisted intraocular
confined spaces [1], [2]. Despite the widespread applications
surgery was performed for membrane peeling using the
of robotic surgery, the use of robotic platforms in
Preceyes Surgical System [5]. However, the teleoperated
microsurgery is still limited [3], since microsurgery poses a
system involves potential risks from their relatively large
number of unique engineering challenges in robot
range of motion and high inertia [6]. The risk may be
development [1]. For example, the surgical robots need to be
exacerbated by patients’ unexpected movement during
miniaturized to reach the small size of lesion, and their
surgery, especially when merely sedated rather than
end-effectors should be precisely controlled. A great level of
anesthetized, as in ophthalmic surgery [7]. Moreover, lack of
precision and dexterity are thus required in an order of
tactile feedback in teleoperation may lead to substantial or
even irrecoverable injury during microsurgery.
*
This research was supported by the Bio & Medical Technology
Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded A cooperative type of surgical robots has also been
by the Ministry of Science & ICT (NRF-2019M3A9E2061784). introduced [8]–[10]. The Steady Hand is a representative
E. Kim is with the Department of Mechanical Convergence Engineering, cooperative robot relying on shared control principles [8], [9].
Hanyang University, Seoul, 04763, Korea. The robot detects force or torque applied by operators, and
I. Choi is with Electrical Engineering Department, Korea University, selectively delivers fine motion to surgical tools while
Seoul, 02841, Korea.
S. Yang is with the Center for Intelligent and Interactive Robotics, Korea suppressing hand tremor [9]. The latest cooperative
Institute of Science & Technology, Seoul, 02792, Korea (corresponding microsurgical robot showed the world first-in-human
author to provide phone: 92-2-958-5747; fax: 82-2-958-5304; e-mail: robot-assisted retinal vein cannulation [10]. Nevertheless, the
swyang@kist.re.kr).

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cooperative platform could not offer motion scaling, which is
beneficial for fine manipulation in microsurgery [11].
As an alternative, a handheld type of miniaturized surgical
robots has been developed for retinal microsurgery and cell
manipulation [11]–[13]. It allows surgeons to directly
maneuver surgical tools, while selectively filtering out
erroneous motion such as hand tremor. Thus, surgeons can
attain the natural feel of manual operation and also direct
tactile feedback from the tool attached to the handheld
micromanipulator. The design of the handheld
micromanipulator in [12] has six degrees of freedom in
actuation and also offers an enlarged workspace in a level of
several millimeters at a tool tip. The use of six piezoelectric
linear motors allows the manipulator compact while providing
Figure 2. Kinematic configuration of a 6-PUS parallel mechanism with the
a cylindrical workspace with ⌀4 mm × 4 mm [12]. However, tool tip displaced by (-1.4, 1.2, 1.0), where the RCM is fixed.
the 6-DOF handheld micromanipulator still entails several
shortcomings in terms of insufficient force capability, inherent
are fixed at a base frame. It thus yields higher dynamic
fragility, and the limited dynamic performance. The tiny
performance, and collision between moving links is avoided
actuators used can withstand stall force only up to 0.5 N,
[14].
which yields a 0.25-N side load capability at the RCM. In
addition, the flexures made of polypropylene are prone to B. Inverse Kinematics
failure for undesired external force applied accidently. Inverse kinematics is adopted for the design and control of
Furthermore, the limited slew rate of the actuator and the 6-PUS parallel mechanism. The inverse kinematics
insufficient structural stiffness by use of the flexures determines the displacements of the prismatic joints for the
consequently degrade the overall dynamic performance of the target pose of an end-effector given an RCM. Such a pivoting
micromanipulator. Another handheld micromanipulator in motion is generally required in most of minimally invasive
[13] adopts a flexure based structure to reduce clearance surgery in order to prevent undesired transverse movement at
caused by conventional universal and spherical joints. the point of entry [15].
However, its workspace is limited to a hundred micrometer
due to the flexure joints. Given the geometric design parameters of the
micromanipulator, its nominal configuration is defined as in
In this paper, we propose a new fully handheld (1),
microsurgical robot that provides the higher force capability
and structural stiffness with improved dynamic performance  Dt cos  A Dt T

as shown in Fig. 1. To draw the maximum force capability P0 Ai  sin iA 0

 2 i 2 
from the limited performance of small actuators, the geometric T
parameters of the micromanipulator are determined by design OBi   Db cos  B Db
sin iB 0 (1)
optimization. Given the optimal design, we investigate the  2 i 2 
workspace and the force capability of the new designed for i  1, 2,...,6 ,
handheld micromanipulator. To accomplish fully handheld

where i  (1) ( t  )   i and iB  (1)i 1b  i0 .
A i 0
operation, the real-time control system is also developed with
motion filters for active tremor cancellation. We 3
experimentally evaluate the side load capability and the tremor Db and Dt indicate the diameters of the base and moving
cancelling performance.
platform, respectively. iA and iB are angles used for
II. MANIPULATOR DESIGN AND ANALYSIS allocating the ith vertices at the base and the moving platform,
A. Manipulator Design respectively. P0 Ai is the position of the ith spherical joint on
We propose a six-prismatic-universal-spherical (6-PUS) the moving platform with respect to P0 , which is the center of
parallel platform design for the handheld robot. The 6-PUS the moving platform at the nominal pose. OBi indicates a
parallel micromanipulator incorporates six linear actuation
modules as prismatic joint as shown in Fig. 2. A moving predefined position of ith link ( Mi Bi ) in the xy-coordinates
platform is connected to the prismatic joints by oblique links. with respect to the center of a base frame, O . Mi is the one
The bottom end of the oblique link is connected to each end of the prismatic joint connected to Ai by a link with the
prismatic joint by a universal joint, and the top end is
connected to the moving platform via a spherical joint. The constant length, ls  M i Ai . Since the prismatic joints travel
position and orientation of the moving platform is determined only along the z-axis, the vertical position of the prismatic
by actuation of the prismatic joints as they push or pull the
joint OMiz is defined as in (2).
oblique links. The 6-PUS kinematic structure takes advantages
over a 6-UPS (universal-prismatic-spherical) parallel 2
mechanism known as a Gough-Stewart platform adopted in OMiz  OAiz  ls2  OAix , y  OM ix , y , (2)
[12]. For example, the 6-PUS mechanism entails light moving where OM ix , y  OBix OBiy  .
mass and small inertia because all prismatic joints (actuators)
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 Given the tool tip position, Te and the RCM, Tr , the generalized force acting on each actuation module, as
relative displacements from P0 are then described by the yielding the optimal geometric parameters, such as the
diameters of the base and moving platform and the length of
position vectors P0Te and P0Tr , respectively, as in (3).
the connecting link.
T
P0Te   Tex Tey Tez  lt  The first step for the optimization is to calculate the force
(3) acting on the actuators given the specific amount and direction
T
P0Tr   Trx Try lrcm  , of the side load. We evaluate the generalized force on the
actuators by taking the Plücker coordinate representation. The
where lt and lrcm are the distance of the tool tip and the RCM unit screw ei is formulated by cascading two vectors, si and
from the center of the moving platform. Given a tool vector
si 0 , where si is the normalized vector of ith link and si 0 is
vtool , the center of the moving platform OP is defined as in
the cross product of PAi and the normalized vector of ith link
(4).
(8).
OP  OP0  P0Te  lt vtool , (4) T
T  Tr  M AT  PA  M A T 
where vtool  e . ei   si si 0    i i  i
61 i i
  (8)
Te  Tr  M i Ai  M i Ai  
 
As a result, we describe the transformation of the moving
platform as the transformation of the tool vector from the From the unit screw ei , the Plücker coordinate, E , can be
nominal pose. The orientation of the transformation is constructed for the given pose of the tool, as in (9).
represented by the angle-axis rotation of the tool vector. The
axis of rotation vrot is the cross product of initial vector of the E 66   e1 e2 e3 e4 e5 e6  (9)
tool vinit and the tool vector vtool in (4). The rotation angle The generalized force on the linear actuators, f , is then
θrot is an angle between the two tool vectors, vinit and vtool calculated by equations from force and moment equilibrium
(5). (10).
f  GE 1F ,
vinit  vtool
vrot  , θrot  cos 1 (
 T
vinit vtool  (10)
) (5) where f 61   f1 f6 
T
f2 f3 f4 f5
vinit  vtool vinit vtool
T
Given the axis and the angle, the unit quaternion, q is defined F 61   F x Fy Fz Mx My M z 
as in (6).
M i Aiz
    G 66  diag ( ).
q  cos  rot   sin  rot  vrot (6) M i Ai
 2   2 
F 61 is a force and moment vector generalized on the moving
Once the rotation matrix Rquat is formulated from the unit
platform, when the external force is applied to the tool. The
quaternion, the ith joint at the moving platform OAi is G 66 is a diagonal matrix, where each diagonal component is
determined by (7). the z-coordinate from the unit vector of Mi Ai .
OAi  Rquat P0 Ai  OP (7)
The generalized forces on the actuators are affected
z primarily by the geometric parameters, such as the diameters
Finally, we obtain the desired travel of the ith actuator, OM , i
of the base Db , and the moving platform Dt , and the length
by substituting (7) into (2).
of the links ls , since the unit screw ei in (8) is a function of
C. Geometric Parameter Optimization Db , Dt , and ls . While the previous study in [12] took a cost
In microsurgery, a small level of force is delivered to the function as the maximum force-variation among the
tool tip for delicate operation, while a relatively large force piezoelectric linear motors because of unavoidable preloading
may occur on the RCM. For example, the surgeons for usage of the motor, we define an objective function subject
deliberately move the eyeball while manipulating surgical to minimizing the maximum force distributed on the linear
tools in vitreoretinal surgery to expand the small field of view actuation modules, given the amount Fr and the direction  r
obtained through an operating microscope with a high of the side load, respectively (11).
magnification. In this scenario, major external force would be
applied to the RCM, and is consequently distributed on each
link. Therefore, it is crucial to design a manipulator in which Db , Dt , ls
 
arg min f max Db , Dt , ls , Fr , r Fr  3.0 N , r 0, 2   (11)
the force distribution is well below the stall force of a linear
actuation module used for seamless operation. Our goal is to Furthermore, we also set a desired cylindrical workspace in
draw the optimal design parameters of the handheld terms of the diameter of workspace Dc and the height hc as a
micromanipulator, such that minimizes the force acting on the nonlinear constraint during optimization. Finally, the
actuator given side load applied to the RCM. optimization results in the diameters of the base and the
Since small actuators and mechanical components are moving platform and the link length, which can minimize the
susceptible to external force, this procedure is to minimize applied force on the linear actuators given the desired
workspace and the external force at the RCM.
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 TABLE I. OPTIMIZATION RESULTS
Db [mm] 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0
Dt [mm] 10.6 11.6 12.6 13.6
**
f max [N] 15.30 6.68 5.57 5.27
the length of the connecting link, ls is lower-bounded to 9.4 mm.
*
**
when a side load of 3.0 N is applied to the RCM.
The upper bound of the base diameter is set by 16.0 mm for
the comfort hand grip of the handheld robot. In addition, the
lower bound of the link length is set to be 9.4 mm while taking
account the size of the universal and spherical joints used. For
the larger base diameter, the smaller force is distributed on the
actuators. Given the lower bound of the link length, the top
diameter is finally determined as 12.6 mm as in Table I.
D. Workspace and Force Capability
We investigate a reachable workspace for pivotal motion
around a predefined RCM, which is located at 33 mm apart
from the moving platform as considering the size of eyeball
and a 60-mm needle length. The workspace is limited by the
available travel of the linear actuation module and the angular
motion of the spherical joints. No collision between two
adjacent links is observed because the angular motion of the
link is limited by the range of motion (ROM) of the spherical
joints. Given the linear travel of 5.0 mm and a spherical joint
with an ROM of ±34.64°, the reachable workspace is obtained
by simulation as represented as a gray cloud in Fig. 3 (a),
which encompasses a designated cylindrical workspace with
4-mm diameter and 3-mm height. Since the travel of linear
actuation can be adjustable regardless of the optimization
procedure, a desired workspace can easily be obtained by
lengthening or shortening the travel for a target workspace as
shown in Fig. 3 (b).
The force capability of the micromanipulator in the
designated workspace is also analyzed. We investigate a
region where the maximum force on the actuators does not
exceed the stall force of 7.5 N for the actuator used in our
platform, when a specific amount of a transverse load is
applied to the predefined RCM. As a result, the
micromanipulator can tolerate a transverse load up to 4.4 N
with the nominal pose and 2.5 N for 76.8% of the entire
desired workspace as illustrated in Fig. 3 (a).
In addition to the side load capability, singularities are also
investigated in the desired workspace, which may occur in
(a) (b)
Figure 3. (a) Reachable workspace (gray) of the micromanipulator and the
desired workspace depicted as a cylinder with a 4-mm diameter and a 3-mm
height. Tolerable workspace for a specific amout of side load applied at
RCM is color-coded for the load from 2.5 to 3.5 N. (b) Available radius and
height of the workpsace for the travel of the actuation module .
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20.0
14.6
5.16
Figure 4. Mechanical design of the fully handheld robot with the exploded
view of the 6-DOF miniature parallel manipualtor.
such closed-loop kinematic chains [16]. Given the velocity
kinematics as in (12), the manipulator undergoes a singularity
if the determinant of either the matrix E or G is zero,
EΩ  G θ (12)
where the generalized velocities of the links are θ and the
twist of the moving platform is Ω . Because the matrix G is
defined as a diagonal matrix and the matrix E has full rank
over the designated workspace, the kinematic configuration is
uniquely determined without any singularity for the interest of
motion in the designated workspace.
III. MECHANICAL DESIGN AND CONTROL
A. Design and Fabrication
The 6-DOF handheld micromanipulator was built based
on the optimized geometric parameters; the dimension of the
manipulator was set by 16.0 mm, 12.6 mm, and 9.4 mm for the
base diameter, the moving platform diameter, and the length
of the connecting link, respectively as shown in Fig. 4. A
linear actuation module comprises a BLDC motor
(EC4-431182, Maxon Motor Ag., Switzerland) with a 17:1
planetary gear box and a lead screw with a 250-µm pitch,
which yields a minimum step size as 2.45 µm for control with
an embedded hall sensor. The actuation module is connected
to a custom-built universal joint. The universal joint comprises
a ⌀2.5 mm-stainless ball and two yokes that capture the ball.
The overall dimension of the joint is 3.4 mm and 4.8 mm in
diameter and height, respectively. The clearance of the joint is
precisely managed by adjusting the gap of the yoke. The other
end of the actuation module is connected to a custom-built
spherical joint made of a ⌀1.5-mm stainless ball in a 3.0-mm
ball socket with 3.54-mm height as shown in Fig. 4. The entire
assembly includes the six actuation modules. The minimal
distance (3.5 mm) between two adjacent actuation modules
are set. The rod of the spherical joint is assembled with the
moving platform with a certain angle to locate the axis of the
spherical joint at the center of its ROM at the nominal pose. It
thus allows to fully operate in the entire ROM of the joint. A
tool adapter with a luer taper on the top of the moving platform
can accommodate versatile surgical tools such as a
hypodermic needle or endolaser for laser treatment.
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 A handpiece encloses the manipulator with PCBs (printed
circuit boards). The handpiece also includes a guide shaft with
a 5-mm through hole to offer a path for insertion of surgical
tools. Finally, an electromagnetic (EM) tracker sensor (Viper
FT-Flatsided sensor, Polhemus, USA) integrated to the end of
the handpiece. The EM tracker provides the 6-DOF pose of
the handpiece for controlling the robot in handheld operation.
The overall dimension of the handheld robot and manipulator
is 24.0 mm wide and 150.0 mm long.
B. Registration for Handheld Operation
To achieve active tremor cancellation, the null position of
the tool tip and RCM should be described in the world
coordinate system given by the source of the EM tracker; the
null position would be the position of the tool tip and RCM as
in a conventional rigid tool. The null position of the moving
platform in the world coordinates is found by a registration
procedure to estimate the rigid body transformation from the
EM tracker to the moving platform in 3D space. We use the
EM tracker with three triangular fiducial markers attached on
the top of the moving platform: first, locate one of the fiducial
points on a fixed pivot point in 3D space and record the EM
tracker data (position and orientation) for 5 s, and then repeat
this step for the other fiducial markers.
X Wpivot  H SW H MS fi M (13)
The X Wpivot and f i M are the pivot point at the world
coordinates and the ith (i = 1, 2, 3) fiducial point at the
moving platform coordinates, respectively. Given the known
position of the fiducial markers at the manipulator
coordinates, we run is a nonlinear optimization using the
S
‘fmincon’ function in Matlab™ to find H M which describe
a homogenous transformation from the manipulator, {M} to
the EM tracker, {S} coordinates, where H S is defined by
W µm within in a range of 150 mm. The RMSE was still
the 6-DOF pose of the EM tracker. As a result, we obtain the
W W
null position of the tool tip and RCM, X tip and X rcm ,
described at the world coordinates using (14).
W
X tip  H SW H MS X rcm
W
(14)
C. Control System
A real-time controller was developed for the 6-DOF
handheld micromanipulator using a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M7
processor with a 600 MHz clock (Teensy4.0, PJRC, USA). To
control the BLDC motors of the actuation modules, six slave
motor controllers (EPOS4, Maxon Motor Ag., Switzerland)
communicate with a main controller via the CANopen
protocol. Given a specific pose of the end-effector, the target
displacement of each actuation module is calculated via the
inverse kinematics and then an error between the target and
the null position is regulated by a feedback controller running
at 500 Hz. The 6-DOF pose of the handpiece from the EM
tracker is streamed to the main controller at 960 Hz via
RS-422 communication as shown in Fig. 5.
D. Active Tremor Cancellation
Active tremor cancellation is to compensate for undesired
hand tremor while preserving voluntary motion. The
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Host PC
Main
Controller RS-422
Handheld
Robot
MFC Teensy 4.0 Viper EM Tracker
Data Acquisition
Controller
Plot
Logging USB
Filter
Command Coordinate Viper
Source
Transformation
Filter Design
BLDC
Motors
Coordinate
Kinematics
Registration Motor
Control
CAN
RCM
Maxon EPOS
Tip
Drive Board x 6
Figure 5. Control framework of the handheld robot with the EM tracker.
voluntary motion in microsurgical operation is described as
signals in frequencies below 2 Hz [17]. In contrast, the
physiological tremor is known to have an RMS
(root-mean-square) amplitude on an order of 50-200 μm at a
frequency commonly in a 6-14 Hz band [18]. Hence, we
design a motion filter for active tremor cancellation as a
second-order Butterworth lowpass filter with a cutoff
frequency of 2 Hz for minimal phase delay. As a result, the
filtered tip and RCM position at the world coordinates are
regarded as target positions for control and then the
corresponding link lengths are calculated by the inverse
kinematic described in II.B.
IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
First, we investigated the static accuracy of the EM tracker
with respect to the distance between the EM tracker and the
source. Because the pose of the tracker is used as the ground
truth signal for all of handheld operation, it should precisely be
managed during microsurgical operation. As a result, the
root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of the tracker was below 10
maintained by a level below 20 µm up to a 250 mm-range.
We evaluated the force capability of the handheld robot by
measuring the RMSE between the target and the resulting
individual motor position. Indeed, the RMSE of the tool tip
position should be measured regarding to external force
applied, but the tool tip sensor is unavailable yet. Fig. 6 shows
the RMSE according to the side load for the range from 0 to
5.0 N on the RCM when a sinusoidal input of 1.0 mm was
injected to the tip. As the side load increased, the RMSE
gradually increased. The increment of RMSE for a 5.0 N side
load from zero-loading was only 2.2 µm, which corresponds
to an error increment of 3.1 µm at the tip by simulation. As a
result, the manipulator tolerates a side load up to 5.0 N without
significant control degradation, as expected from the
workspace analysis: up to 4.4 N at the nominal pose.
Finally, we tested the performance of the active tremor
cancellation as shown in Fig. 7 (a). The target task was to
maintain contact force while holding the handheld robot over a
silicone membrane with a F/T sensor (ATI-Nano17, ATI
Industrial Automation, USA) on the top for 20 s under a
stereo-microscope (SZX7, Olympus, Japan). We computed
the magnitude of peak forces for three-axes(xyz) from the F/T
sensor while executing the task for unaided (cancellation-off)
and robot-aided (cancellation-on) operation. The task was
 EM
Sensor
Silicone
EM
Source

Handhled
Force Robot
Sensor
(a)
Figure 6. RMSEs in actuator control for various sideloads applied to the
RCM.

repeated for five trials. As a result, the peak force reduced

from 3.32 ± 0.79 mN to 2.71 ± 0.60 mN for the robot-aided
operation compared to the unaided (p < 0.05) as shown in Fig.
7 (b). Furthermore, the contact force with the active tremor
cancellation occurred in a relatively lower range, whereas
unaided operation resulted in higher deviation. This is an
important measure of hand tremor reduction since even a
single large excursion may cause collateral damage in
microsurgery.
(b)

V. DISCUSSION
A new type of handheld robot was designed while taking
advantages of the 6-PUS parallel mechanism such as
inherently low inertia and the design flexibility. Compared to
the latest 6-DOF handheld micromanipulator [12], the new
design exhibits an order of magnitude higher force capability.
This is achieved primarily by the design flexibility, which
allows to use larger and stronger actuators. In the previous
design with the Stewart platform in [12], the use of larger
actuators would fairly be limited because of the volumes of the
actuators used as extensible links between the moving and the
base frames. On the other hand, in the 6-PUS platform, the
larger actuator can be used because its body is located at the
base and stationary during manipulation. It thus offers a wide
range of actuator selection and more degrees-of-freedom in
design. Therefore, the proposed design can endure a larger
amount of side load even with smaller base diameter, which is
a primary design parameter that determines the overall
dimension of the handheld robot. As a result, the overall
diameter of the base could be reduced from 20 mm to 16 mm,
which is fairly significant reduction for the ergonomic grip of
such handheld instruments. However, such a high force
capability would be achieved only if the mechanical joints can
endure the force delivered to the links. Although the flexure
design introduced in [12] less likely involves friction in
movement and is easy to use, the flexure joint is prone to
failure under high angular motion or high external load; if then,
the plastic deformation or irrecoverable damage would occur.
Hence, the new handheld robot adopting the custom-built
mechanical joints can endure a large amount of force without
collapse of the manipulator.
The 6-PUS kinematic chain also offers another aspect of
the design flexibility during the optimization procedure. In the
Stewart platform, the length of the extensible link is one of the
geometric parameters to be optimized for the minimal force
distribution, in which its specific length is coupled with the
Figure 7. (a) Experimental setup for active tremor cancellation. (b)
Comparison of unided vs. robot-aided opeartion for task mainating contact
force.
travel of the linear actuator and the reachable workspace.
However, in the 6-PUS design, the travel of the actuator can be
easily customized by lengthening the lead screw regardless of
the optimal geometric parameters. In addition, we also
revisited the optimization procedure of the handheld
micromanipulator introduced in [12] with an additional
nonlinear constraint to attain the desired workspace.
In addition, the proposed handheld robot that incorporates
the highly accurate EM tracker, which is crucial for
identifying 6-DOF hand motion and for controlling tip motion.
A highly precise optical tracker has been introduced to address
issues raised by using the IMUs such as drift and low
signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) for relatively small and slow
signal. However, the optical tracker still suffers from a
line-of-sight problem, which hinders a large angular motion.
The use of the EM tracker is free from such a sight-line issue
and also not limited by the working distance from light
detectors.
The performance of the handheld micromanipulator
should more extensively be investigated in further study. The
current design of the handheld robot includes only one EM
tracker to sense 6-DOF hand motion. By incorporating another
tracker that can identify the current pose of the end-effector tip,
we will be able to evaluate the overall performance of the
manipulator in terms of positioning accuracy for various tasks
and control bandwidth. Besides, the use of the lowpass filter as
the active tremor cancellation inevitably imposes control
latency due to the inherent phase lag of the filter. It could also
be improved by applying feedforward control and
sophisticated filter algorithms to the handheld robot.

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