Maneuvering system having inner force sense presenting function

A manipulation system having a force feedback capability comprising a master manipulator and a slave manipulator connected to each other in a bilaterally controllable manner,

• wherein a position and an orientation of a tip section of said slave manipulator is controlled in accordance with manual operation on an input unit of said master manipulator;
• said master manipulator is operated under electrically-driven speed control and the slave manipulator is operated under pneumatically-driven force control, and an external force acting on the tip section of said slave manipulator is fed back in to said master manipulator;
• and
• said slave manipulator comprises a drive mechanism for moving the tip section to a desired position with desired degrees of freedom, and at least one pneumatic actuator for driving said drive mechanism;
• said manipulation system comprising:
• an external force estimation section to estimate an external force acting on the tip section of said slave manipulator from a motion of said pneumatic actuator;
• a master manipulator drive control unit to output, as a reactive force given to the input unit, a force feedback of an external force acted on the tip section by driving the input section of said slave manipulator based on the estimated value obtained, obtain a target position/orientation (xm) for the tip section of said slave manipulator from an opposing force (fm) to the reactive force applied from the input unit, and provide the obtained target position/orientation to said slave manipulator;
• and
• a slave manipulator drive control unit to control the position and orientation of the tip section of said slave manipulator based on the target position/orientation received from said master manipulator drive control unit.