Shaft-integrated Force Sensing with Transformer-based Dynamics Compensation for Telesurgery

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Yang, Shuyuan, Boone, Grant, Markert, Timo, Matich, Sebastian, Theissler, Andreas, Atzmueller, Martin, Chua, Zonghe
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Yang, Shuyuan
Boone, Grant
Markert, Timo
Matich, Sebastian
Theissler, Andreas
Atzmueller, Martin
Chua, Zonghe
author_facet Yang, Shuyuan
Boone, Grant
Markert, Timo
Matich, Sebastian
Theissler, Andreas
Atzmueller, Martin
Chua, Zonghe
contents Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RAMIS) enhances surgeon dexterity, with newer platforms leveraging haptic feedback to further improve performance. Such force information has broader potential to inform performance assessment, tactile localization, and surgical autonomy. This motivates the need for accessible approaches to integrating force sensing into RAMIS tools. This work presents a method for integrating a six-axis commercial force sensor into the distal end of a standard cable-driven surgical instrument, enabling end-effector force measurement while preserving the original mechanical functionality of the device. The proposed design emphasizes reproducibility and accessibility for research applications, requiring no specialized manufacturing tools. A transformer neural network integrates force sensor measurements with robot state information to aid estimation of applied forces at the end-effector, compensating for internal cable forces arising from actuation. Our proposed approach achieved normalized errors below 6%, and generalized to unseen conditions better than purely proximal data-driven sensing approaches. High internal cable forces caused sensor saturation and reduced axial force observability, which can degrade performance along the tool's major axis and under higher load conditions. Given current levels of performance, the balance of system integrability and performance enables applications and research into timely topics of haptic feedback, skill assessment, and force-informed autonomy in RAMIS. Videos and code are available at https://enhanced-telerobotics.github.io/shaft force sensing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_31434
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Shaft-integrated Force Sensing with Transformer-based Dynamics Compensation for Telesurgery
Yang, Shuyuan
Boone, Grant
Markert, Timo
Matich, Sebastian
Theissler, Andreas
Atzmueller, Martin
Chua, Zonghe
Robotics
Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RAMIS) enhances surgeon dexterity, with newer platforms leveraging haptic feedback to further improve performance. Such force information has broader potential to inform performance assessment, tactile localization, and surgical autonomy. This motivates the need for accessible approaches to integrating force sensing into RAMIS tools. This work presents a method for integrating a six-axis commercial force sensor into the distal end of a standard cable-driven surgical instrument, enabling end-effector force measurement while preserving the original mechanical functionality of the device. The proposed design emphasizes reproducibility and accessibility for research applications, requiring no specialized manufacturing tools. A transformer neural network integrates force sensor measurements with robot state information to aid estimation of applied forces at the end-effector, compensating for internal cable forces arising from actuation. Our proposed approach achieved normalized errors below 6%, and generalized to unseen conditions better than purely proximal data-driven sensing approaches. High internal cable forces caused sensor saturation and reduced axial force observability, which can degrade performance along the tool's major axis and under higher load conditions. Given current levels of performance, the balance of system integrability and performance enables applications and research into timely topics of haptic feedback, skill assessment, and force-informed autonomy in RAMIS. Videos and code are available at https://enhanced-telerobotics.github.io/shaft force sensing.
title Shaft-integrated Force Sensing with Transformer-based Dynamics Compensation for Telesurgery
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31434