The Mechanism and the Intelligent Control Method of a Surgical Robot for Total Hip Arthroplasty

Abstract

This paper presents mechanisms and the intelligent control method for ARTHROBOT, a new surgical robot for total hip arthroplasy. A 4-DOF robot that can be mounted on a femur has been developed and a new gauge-based registration method has been proposed to minimize the disadvantages of the conventional registration method. The proposed surgical system employs gauge-based registration method, for which a measuring-type block gauge and a measuring device are designed and the compensation algorithm is implemented through tetrahedron approach. The proposed surgical robot can operate along a pre-programmed path autonomously or allow the surgeon to directly control the motion of the surgical robot, allowing the experience and judgment of the surgeon take part in an operation. For this purpose, a master is attached to the surgical robot and admittance display is used in control. Since the system has low operating cost and is compatible to the conventional manual surgery, it is expected to be easily adaptable to surgical needs and practices in the operating room.