Abstract
This article presents a dexterous robotic system for autonomous debridement of osteolytic bone lesions in confined spaces. The proposed system is distinguished from the state-of-the-art orthopedics systems because it combines a rigid-link robot with a continuum manipulator (CM) that enhances reach in difficult-to-access spaces often encountered in surgery. The CM is equipped with flexible debriding instruments and fiber Bragg grating sensors. The surgeon plans on the patient’s preoperative computed tomography and the robotic system performs the task autonomously under the surgeon’s supervision. An optimization-based controller generates control commands on the fly to execute the task while satisfying physical and safety constraints. The system design and controller are discussed and extensive simulation, phantom and human cadaver experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance, workspace, and dexterity in confined spaces. Mean and standard deviation of target placement are 0.5 and 0.18 mm, and the robotic system covers 91% of the workspace behind an acetabular implant in treatment of hip osteolysis, compared to the 54% that is achieved by conventional rigid tools.
Highlights
R OBOTIC technology is one of the fastest growing sectors within the healthcare industry [1]
The controller is implemented as a mid-level periodic task sitting in between the surgeon’s high-level control input through a graphical user interface (GUI) and the low-level controller tasks associated with the UR manipulator, and the actuation unit’s motors for the continuum manipulator (CM) cables and the flexible instruments
The tip position estimation obtained from the FBG sensor was expressed with respect to the base of the CM. Combining this information with the end-effector shaft pose obtained from the optical tracker reflective jig 2 and the transformations obtained from the hand-eye calibration, the CM tip position can be expressed with respect to the base of the entire robotic system and used as feedback in the controller framework
Summary
R OBOTIC technology is one of the fastest growing sectors within the healthcare industry [1]. An extensive review on the use of CMs across surgical applications, including neurosurgery, otolaryngology, cardiac, vascular, abdominal, and urology, can be found in [12] In comparison to these surgical domains, orthopedic surgeries involve interactions of instruments with hard tissues and bone, resulting in significantly higher contact forces. On the other hand, leverages the high flexibility of the CMs to enable access to confined regions (e.g., behind the acetabular cup or femoral head) that are difficult to reach with rigid instruments and grants the surgeons great control over removing only the target points that they have identified as part of the lesion. We present a surgical workstation containing a dexterous and redundant robotic system for the autonomous removal of bone lesions in confined spaces by combining a conventional rigidlink robot for general positioning and a CM developed for orthopedic applications [18]–[20].
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