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. 2018 Mar;46(3):464-474.
doi: 10.1007/s10439-017-1959-5. Epub 2017 Nov 22.

A Robotic Flexible Drill and Its Navigation System for Total Hip Arthroplasty

Ahmad Nazmi Bin Ahmad Fuad  1 , Hariprashanth Elangovan  1 , Kamal Deep  2 , Wei Yao  3
Affiliations

A Robotic Flexible Drill and Its Navigation System for Total Hip Arthroplasty

Ahmad Nazmi Bin Ahmad Fuad et al. Ann Biomed Eng. 2018 Mar.

Abstract

This paper presents a robotic flexible drill and its navigation system for total hip arthroplasty (THA). The new robotic system provides an unprecedented and unique capability to perform curved femoral milling under the guidance of a multimodality navigation system. The robotic system consists of three components. Firstly, a flexible drill manipulator comprises multiple rigid segments that act as a sheath to a flexible shaft with a drill/burr attached to the end. The second part of the robotic system is a hybrid tracking system that consists of an optical tracking system and a position tracking system. Optical tracking units are used to track the surgical objects and tools outside the drilling area, while a rotary encoder placed at each joint of the sheath is synchronized to provide the position information for the flexible manipulator with its virtual object. Finally, the flexible drill is integrated into a computer-aided navigation system. The navigation system provides real time guidance to a surgeon during the procedure. The flexible drill system is then able to implement THA by bone milling. The final section of this paper is an evaluation of the flexible and steerable drill and its navigation system for femoral bone milling in sawbones.

Keywords: Flexible; Navigation; Orthopaedics; Robotics; Steerable; Total hip arthroplasty (THA); Tracking.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Traditional hand-rasping method for Total Hip Arthroplasty; (b) proposed method by using the robotic flexible drill.
Figure 2
Figure 2
A prototype of the flexible drill mechanism.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Kinematic sketch and the workspace of the flexible drill.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The setting of the multi-modality tracking system.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Setting up the boundary of the safe surgical volume (a) The femur and implant 3D models; (b) Position the femoral stem inside the 3D bone model; (c) Safety area is defined as the deeper green area; (d) The milling is guided by the safety boundary.
Figure 6
Figure 6
A graphical user interface (GUI) of the navigation system.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Flowchart of the navigation system in reference to basic concept of CAOS that divides the system into surgical object (SO), virtual object (VO), Navigation (NAV), and end effector (EE).
Figure 8
Figure 8
System setting for the flexible drill and its navigation system in a sawbone test rig.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Conceptual clinical setting for THA using the flexible drill and its navigation system.
Figure 10
Figure 10
The chromatogram used for an analysis of the milling procedure.
Figure 11
Figure 11
(a) Percentage deviation distribution of point cloud data of cut area of the femur sawbone; (b) Standard deviation of point cloud data of cut area of the femur sawbone.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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