Introducing haptic capabilities to a bone-mounted robot for intra-operative surface scanning
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Published on: August 8, 2011
1BRML Biorobotics and Biomechanics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. yoelsh@tx.technion.ac.il
Background:
Bone-mounted robots for orthopaedic surgery are small, cost-effective and could reduce invasiveness. Preoperative planning requires imaging (e.g. X-ray, CT, MRI) and a registration procedure, which introduces error. Accuracy might be improved by building an intraoperative anatomical model in the robot's own coordinate system, utilizing the rigid bone-robot connection.
Methods:
Haptic capabilities were added to MBARS and user tests were conducted to help design the haptic control loop. The accuracy of a 3D physical scan was tested on a femur model.
Results:
Indication for force scaling and mode switching was found. Average distance error of collected points from the surface scanned by the robot was 0.3 mm.
Conclusions:
It is suggested that haptic control of bone-mounted robots should be non-linear and not necessarily transparent. Haptic surface acquisition can be used to generate an accurate intraoperative model of a joint surface.
