Design of a 6-DOF Low-cost Manipulator with Force Feedback for Master-Slave Control of Continuum Robot System

This paper presents a low-cost, light-weight, six-degree-of-freedom force feedback manipulator, aiming to conduct the master-slave control of a surgical robot system with continuum structure. Firstly, considering the practical workspace requirements of the continuum minimally invasive surgical robot, a basic series configuration is proposed that can provide three degrees of freedom for force feedback and achieve gravity balance through mechanical counterweighting. Secondly, a force feedback bidirectional master-slave control system based on a dynamic model is constructed, which can realize incremental master-slave control, variable ratio control, and force feedback functions. In the end, experiments are conducted to verify the position accuracy, gravity balance effect, and force feedback performance of the master manipulator. The experimental results show that the presented force feedback master manipulator has a position resolution of less than 0.4mm and can provide a maximum feedback force of 75.7N. The overall cost of the system is less than 60 US dollars.