A novel methodology to reproduce previously recorded six-degree of freedom kinematics on the same diarthrodial joint

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop a novel method to more accurately reproduce previously recorded 6-DOF kinematics of the tibia with respect to the femur using robotic technology. Furthermore, the effect of performing only a single or multiple registrations and the effect of robot joint configuration were investigated. A single registration consisted of registering the tibia and femur with respect to the robot at full extension and reproducing all kinematics while multiple registrations consisted of registering the bones at each flexion angle and reproducing only the kinematics of the corresponding flexion angle. Kinematics of the knee in response to an anterior (134 N) and combined internal/external (±10 N m) and varus/valgus (±5 N m) loads were collected at 0°, 15°, 30°, 60°, and 90° of flexion. A six axes, serial-articulated robotic manipulator (PUMA Model 762) was calibrated and the working volume was reduced to improve the robot's accuracy. The effect of the robot joint configuration was determined by performing single and multiple registrations for three selected configurations. For each robot joint configuration, the accuracy in position of the reproduced kinematics improved after multiple registrations (0.7±0.3, 1.2±0.5, and 0.9±0.2 mm, respectively) when compared to only a single registration (1.3±0.9, 2.0±1.0, and 1.5±0.7 mm, respectively) ( p < 0.05 ). The accuracy in position of each robot joint configuration was unique as significant differences were detected between each of the configurations. These data demonstrate that the number of registrations and the robot joint configuration both affect the accuracy of the reproduced kinematics. Therefore, when using robotic technology to reproduce previously recorded kinematics, it may be necessary to perform these analyses for each individual robotic system and for each diarthrodial joint, as different joints will require the robot to be placed in different robot joint configurations.