Real time estimation and suppression of hand tremor for surgical robotic applications

In this work, an algorithm was developed to record and suppress the physiological tremor present in the hands of surgeon doing robotic surgical procedure due to fatigue or otherwise. A prototype setup of master handle having six degree of freedom with a vibration motor was designed and fabricated to record the hand tremor. The work involved recording the composite simulated motion consisting of both voluntary motion of surgeon’s hand and associated involuntary motion of tremor in real time, determination of peak frequencies of both the motions and providing necessary information on the graphical user interface. The adaptive algorithm is capable to cancel out the involuntary motion from the recorded raw signal in real time. After filtration, only voluntary motion remains for further processing. The developed algorithm promises potential to make robotic surgery more precise and error free.