Abstract: Computer assisted surgery is a promising application of robotic technology, whose main goals are surgical augmentation, information enhancement and improved surgical action. A key component in surgical robotic systems is the man-machine interface, which is manipulated by the surgeon to drive the robotic system. This device must render to the surgeon all the visual and tactile information needed to perform the surgical task in a safe and precise way.
A haptic system is a robotized device designed to interact with the human operator, giving tactile sensations to him by means of force-feedback. In this work, we present two master-slave haptic systems for surgery developed at the Robotics and Mechatronics Laboratories of the Department of Innovation in Mechanics and Management of University of Padua, Italy. The first device was designed to perform a minimally-invasive neurosurgery operation, the second one to evaluate the feasibility of a robotized spinal fusion intervention.