7^th Public Report:

 An interface between the FT-sensor and Control PC was established, which enabled us to read the output data of the sensor. With that, the Force-Free Guidance mode was implemented. The user is now able to move the robot freely with his hands in a smooth and precise manner. This method enables the surgeon to manually align the gripper with the tool with high precision, as an alternative to the autonomous method (based on the tool tracking algorithm).

For the camera system, we had to calculate the extrinsic calibration. This was done with a flat checkerboard pattern on the base of the robot. The calibration was quite precise; however we will try to assemble a more appropriate marker, but for now it proved to be sufficient.

The approach of the robot to the tool had been previously done in simulation. Now, with the robot ready and camera calibrated, we could finally do it in the real world, with a maximum error of ~1cm. Thus an enhancement of the precision seems to be necessary.