Patent ID: 8770905

Claim:
An anthropomorphic force-reflective master arm, comprising: a base; a plurality of backdrive motors disposed on the base, the plurality including a first degree of freedom backdrive motor, the backdrive motors providing backdrive response to forces encountered by a remote slave arm for each degree of freedom of the master arm; threaded rollers disposed on the backdrive motors; force transmission cables disposed on the threaded rollers; a plurality of link members having joints independently and rotatably joining the link members to each other, including a first link member rotatably attached to the base; a plurality of pulleys, at least one of the pulleys being disposed in a corresponding one of the link member joints, the force transmission cables being attached to the pulleys; at least one flexible transmission member interconnecting the first link member to the first backdrive motor, the first backdrive motor providing backdrive torque to the first link member to rotate the first link member about a first degree of freedom, the first link member including an interlink transmission system; and a hand grip disposed at a junction of three of the link members, the three link members being independently, rotatably coupled to each other and forming handle link members, wherein an axis of rotation of each of the three handle link members intersects at a user's hand position, each of the three handle link members being connected to a corresponding one of the plurality of backdrive motors, the corresponding backdrive motor providing backdrive torque that the user can sense at the hand grip.