The chewing robot: a new biologically-inspired way to evaluate dental restorative materials

This paper presents a novel in vitro dental wear simulator based on 6-6 parallel kinematics to replicate mechanical wear formation on dental materials and components, such as individual teeth, crowns or bridges. The human mandible, guided by a range of passive structures moves with up to six degrees of freedom (DOF). Currently available wear simulators lack the ability to perform these complex chewing movements. In addition simulators are unable to replicate the normal range of chewing forces as they have no control system able to mimic the natural muscle function controlled by the human central nervous system. Such discrepancies between true in vivo and simulated in vitro movements will influence the outcome and reliability of wear studies using such approaches. This paper summarizes the development of a new dynamic jaw simulator based on the kinematics of the human jaw.