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A method for identifying otological drill entanglement with a cotton swab
Tianyang Cao1, Xisheng Li, Zhiqiang Gao
1School of Automation & Electrical Engineering, University of Science & Technology Beijing .
Background:
The entanglement of the otological drill with cotton swabs is a common milling fault in ear surgery. To improve operational safety, this paper presents a method for identifying this type of milling fault.
Methods:
Force and current sensors were installed on a modified otological drill. In accordance with the DC motor model and cutting force model, two features of the milling process were extracted, namely the characteristic curve and the dynamic relationship between the sensor signals. These are complementary features. An adaptive filter was designed to fuse them together and output a curve that was sensitive to milling faults and was stable during normal milling. Based on the filtering data, a rule base is presented for identifying cotton swab entanglement.
Results:
Five surgeons were invited to perform an experiment on calvarian bones. The average recognition rate for milling faults was 90%, whereas only 2% of normal millings were identified as milling faults.
Conclusions:
The presented method could adapt to the technique of different surgeons and identify milling faults exactly.
