Master-slave control systems allow operators to manipulate a slave robot located at a remote site. Haptic sensation resulting from interaction force and torque between the slave robot and the environment can be transmitted and rendered to the operator’s hands. We have been developing haptic masters and control methods for various medical robots and devices. The control methods can also be used for haptic simulation by replacing the real environment with a virtual environment.

Fig. 1 Model-mediated teleoperation in the presence of time delay

Fig. 3 Haptic master for an active-steering catheter robot [2017-, Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy]

  A guidewire is a medical instrument used to guide a catheter to a target lesion through blood vessels. The guidewires are frequently inserted into and pulled out from the patient’s vessels repeatedly during intervention procedures because the tip of the guidewire needs to be shaped manually at many different branches in the vessels before the guidewire finally reaches the target lesion. We have been developing a guidewire which has a capacity to steer its tip area actively. (Fig. 1). It can safely access small diameter vessels. The guidewire is tested in a blood circulatory system which emulates human blood pressure and velocity in a similar vessel geometry (Fig. 2). We also have been developing an extrusion process system which manufactures a body part of the active-steering guidewire (Fig. 3).

Fig. 1 Active-steering guidewire.

Fig. 2 Blood circulatory system.

Fig. 3 Extrusion process system.