  Minimally invasive robotic surgery has gained significant attention over the
past two decades. Telerobotic systems, combined with robot-mediated minimally
invasive techniques, have enabled surgeons and clinicians to mitigate radiation
exposure for medical staff and extend medical services to remote and
hard-to-reach areas. To enhance these services, teleoperated robotic surgery
systems incorporating master and follower devices should offer transparency,
enabling surgeons and clinicians to remotely experience a force interaction
similar to the one the follower device experiences with patients' bodies. This
paper presents the design and development of a three-degree-of-freedom
master-follower teleoperated system for robotic catheterization. To resemble
manual intervention by clinicians, the follower device features a
grip-insert-release mechanism to eliminate catheter buckling and torsion during
operation. The bidirectionally navigable ablation catheter is statically
characterized for force-interactive medical interventions. The system's
performance is evaluated through approaching and open-loop path tracking over
typical circular, infinity-like, and spiral paths. Path tracking errors are
presented as mean Euclidean error (MEE) and mean absolute error (MAE). The MEE
ranges from 0.64 cm (infinity-like path) to 1.53 cm (spiral path). The MAE also
ranges from 0.81 cm (infinity-like path) to 1.92 cm (spiral path). The results
indicate that while the system's precision and accuracy with an open-loop
controller meet the design targets, closed-loop controllers are necessary to
address the catheter's hysteresis and dead zone, and system nonlinearities.
