A surgical robot and a control method for the enables measurement of external force applied to a surgical tool of a slave device. In the surgical robot, the slave device may include an external force measurement unit, an image capture unit, and a controller. The external force measurement unit may include a force sensor attached to a surgical instrument to measure external force applied to a surgical tool provided at the surgical instrument, and a visual information display unit connected to the force sensor to display visual information corresponding to the external force output from the force sensor. The image capture unit acquires an image with regard to the visual information. The controller extracts the visual information from the image using image processing, and converts the extracted visual information into corresponding external force information.
