Inferring material properties in robotic bone drilling processes.

Purpose: Recent innovations in robotics have enabled the development of automatic bone drilling tools which allows surgeons to improve the precision of their surgical operations. However, these tools still lack valuable tactile information about the material properties of the bone, preventing surgeons from making decisions while operating. The aim of this work is to explore whether robotic drilling tools can infer bone condition on the basis of certain key measures, particularly thrust force.

Medical Device for Automated Prick Test Reading.

Allergy tests are routinely performed in most hospitals everyday. However, measuring the outcomes of these tests is still a very laborious manual task. Current methods and systems lack of precision and repeatability.

Using an admittance algorithm for bone drilling procedures.

Bone drilling is a common procedure in many types of surgeries, including orthopedic, neurological and otologic surgeries. Several technologies and control algorithms have been developed to help the surgeon automatically stop the drill before it goes through the boundary of the tissue being drilled. However, most of them rely on thrust force and cutting torque to detect bone layer transitions which has many drawbacks that affect the reliability of the process.

A haptic pedal for surgery assistance.

The research and development of mechatronic aids for surgery is a persistent challenge in the field of robotic surgery. This paper presents a new haptic pedal conceived to assist surgeons in the operating room by transmitting real-time surgical information through the foot. An effective human-robot interaction system for medical practice must exchange appropriate information with the operator as quickly and accurately as possible.

Bone drilling methodology and tool based on position measurements.

Bone drilling, despite being a very common procedure in hospitals around the world, becomes very challenging when performed close to organs such as the cochlea or when depth control is critical for avoiding damage to surrounding tissue. To date, several mechatronic prototypes have been proposed to assist surgeons by automatically detecting bone layer transitions and breakthroughs. However, none of them is currently accurate enough to be part of the surgeon's standard equipment.