Synthesis of robotic mechanism for microsurgical corneal grafting

In order to enhance the effect of corneal grafting, an assisting microsurgical robot has been developed. As one of principal issues for the robotic system design, type and size synthesis of the robotic mechanism is discussed. For this purpose, timeline subtask is analyzed with surgical component motion in manual corneal grafting microsurgery, as the reference of robotic mechanism synthesis. On the basis of study on the kinematic correlation between the arm structures and the wrist structures, configuration of joint is determined for the surgical task and motion in type synthesis of the mechanism. The objective for size synthesis of robotic mechanism is optimization of the mechanism dexterity as a manipulation capability. The condition number based on Jacob matrix is chosen as dexterity measure of the mechanism. The prototype is developed.