Author:

Keywords:

Medical Robot, Computer Aided Orthopaedic Surgery, Navigators

Abstract:

This paper presents the concept of Navi-Robot, an integrated system of a navigator and a robotic arm for orthopaedic surgical procedures. Navi-Robot is a self-balancing 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) arm capable to switch between the navigation mode and robotic mode. The first mode is used detect bones’ and articulations’ features and positions, while the second mode is effectively used for surgical operations. The transition from the passive to the active mode is achieved by adopting special electrically activated brakes, which are also used to ‘freeze’ each arm in the desired configuration, for convenient use. A first prototype has been assembled and a basic electronics and control system have been implemented to perform kinematic tests. More specifically, from the kinematic and mechanical point of view, the whole system is actually consisting of three 6-DOF arms, two of which are mere navigation systems and the third is the actual Navi-Robot system, as defined above. The self-balancing feature of each arm is achieved by integrating the kinematic chain with a first fourbar-linkage, which guaranties full weight compensation. In a typical surgical procedure, the end effectors of the two navigation arms are fixed to bones of the joint of interest (JOI) and used to give a reference to the Navi-Robot for intervention. Patent applications cover the entire system.