Sensory Glove-Based Surgical Robot User Interface
🤖 AI Summary
Current surgical robot consoles are bulky, closed, and proprietary, impeding operating room spatial efficiency, team collaboration, and integration of emerging technologies such as extended reality (XR). To address these limitations, this work proposes a lightweight, open-source, perception-glove–based interaction system that replaces the conventional console for gesture-driven control of the da Vinci surgical robot and its end-effectors. A novel instrument-orientation clutching mechanism is introduced to enhance intuitive manipulation. The system integrates Manus Meta Prime 3 gloves, HTC Vive trackers, SCOPEYE smart glasses, and the open-source dVRK platform, augmented with vibrotactile feedback to improve action confirmation. Experimental evaluation demonstrates high tracking accuracy and rapid operator proficiency—surgeons achieved efficient performance on standardized tasks after minimal training. Both qualitative and quantitative assessments indicate that the system matches or exceeds the dVRK console in task performance, significantly improving human–robot collaboration efficiency and system extensibility.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Robotic surgery has reached a high level of maturity and has become an integral part of standard surgical care. However, existing surgeon consoles are bulky, take up valuable space in the operating room, make surgical team coordination challenging, and their proprietary nature makes it difficult to take advantage of recent technological advances, especially in virtual and augmented reality. One potential area for further improvement is the integration of modern sensory gloves into robotic platforms, allowing surgeons to control robotic arms intuitively with their hand movements. We propose one such system that combines an HTC Vive tracker, a Manus Meta Prime 3 XR sensory glove, and SCOPEYE wireless smart glasses. The system controls one arm of a da Vinci surgical robot. In addition to moving the arm, the surgeon can use fingers to control the end-effector of the surgical instrument. Hand gestures are used to implement clutching and similar functions. In particular, we introduce clutching of the instrument orientation, a functionality unavailable in the da Vinci system. The vibrotactile elements of the glove are used to provide feedback to the user when gesture commands are invoked. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation has been conducted that compares the current device with the dVRK console. The system is shown to have excellent tracking accuracy, and the new interface allows surgeons to perform common surgical training tasks with minimal practice efficiently.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Improve surgeon console ergonomics and space efficiency
Integrate sensory gloves for intuitive robotic arm control
Enhance surgical instrument control with hand gestures
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Integrates sensory gloves for intuitive robotic control
Uses HTC Vive tracker and Manus Meta glove
Provides vibrotactile feedback for gesture commands
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