Haptic Feedback for Microrobotics Applications: A Review

Abstract

Microrobotics systems are showing promising results in several applications and scenarios, such as targeted drug delivery and screening, biopsy, environmental control, surgery, and assembly. While most of the systems presented in the literature consider autonomous techniques, there is a growing interest in human-in-the-loop approaches. For reasons of responsibility, safety, and public acceptance, it is in fact beneficial to provide a human with intuitive and effective means for directly controlling these microrobotic systems. In this respect, haptic feedback is widely believed to be a valuable tool in human-in-the-loop teleoperation systems. This article presents a review of the literature on haptic feedback systems for microrobotics, categorizing it according to the type of haptic technology employed. In particular, we considered both tethered and untethered systems, including applications of micropositioning, microassembly, minimally invasive surgery, delivery of objects, micromanipulation, and injection of cells. One of the main challenges for an effective implementation is stability control. In fact, the high scaling factors introduced to match variables in the macro and the micro worlds may introduce instabilities. Another challenge lies in the measurement of position and force signals in the remote environment. The integration of microsized sensors may significantly increase the complexity and cost of tools fabrication. To overcome the lack of force-sensing, vision seems a promising solution. Finally, although the literature on haptic feedback for untethered microrobotics is still quite small, we foreseen a great development of this field of research, thanks to its flexible applications in biomedical engineering scenarios.

Haptic-Based Shared-Control Methods for a Dual-Arm System

“…O VER the last few years remote telemanipulation has shown significant advancements and promising results have been achieved in several fields such as minimally-invasive robotic surgery [1], sort and segregation of nuclear waste [2], [3], telemaintenance [4], and micromanipulation [5], [6]. In this respect, the nuclear industry is one of the most exciting fields of application for robotic telemanipulation, where several tasks, such as sort and segregation of nuclear waste, can clearly benefit from advanced telemanipulation techniques.…”

User Evaluation of a Haptic-Enabled Shared-Control Approach for Robotic Telemanipulation

“…Remote telemanipulation has shown significant advancements over the last years and promising results have been achieved in several robotic tasks, such as space exploration [1], minimally invasive surgery [2], sort and segregation of nuclear waste [3]- [5], telemaintenance [6], and micromanipulation [7], [8]. As teleoperation systems become more sophisticated and flexible, the environments and applications where they can be employed become less structured and predictable.…”

Teleoperation in cluttered environments using wearable haptic feedback

“…Simultaneously, the human operator steers the gripper along with the remaining nullspace directions through a grounded haptic interface. Haptic feedback has been proven to play a key role in enhancing the performance of robotic telemanipulation systems in a wide range of applications, including suturing simulation [10], microassembly [11], [12], [13], microneedle positioning [14], guidance [15], telepresence [16], and palpation [17], [18]. Haptic feedback has proven to enhance the performance of these systems in terms of completion time [10], [19], accuracy [10], [20], and peak and mean exerted force [18], [19], [21].…”