Design and Evaluation of a Foot-Controlled Robotic System for Endoscopic Surgery

In traditional endoscopic surgery, the surgeon manipulating instruments is supported by an assistant controlling endoscope, where their coordination may be affected communication errors. To address this issue, we introduce a foot interface controlled robotic system, enabling to simultaneously operate endoscope and instruments. The system consists of using four degrees freedom (DoFs) gestures driving for commercial flexible endoscope. proposed was validated in teleoperation experiments performed ten subjects, compared with hand direct control two hands. participants could successfully teleoperate exhibited 40% faster task completion as control. They found both teleoperations comfortable intuitive. Although enabled best performance, only allows simultaneous three