Robot-assisted bone fragment positioning system and method

Robot-Assisted Bone Fragment Positioning System Using Two-Stage Coordinate Registration and Feature Point Origin Setting

This technology is a robot-assisted bone fragment positioning system and method that synchronizes the coordinate systems between medical image-based surgical planning and the actual surgical environment through a two-stage registration process, and automatically controls bone fragment movement by setting anatomical feature points as the center point of the robotic tool.

Conventional surgical robots have faced challenges where the manual setting of anatomical feature points by surgeons is time-consuming, and registration accuracy can be compromised by the surgeon's level of expertise or environmental factors.

This technology proposes a method that calculates the displacement between the actual model in pre-operative medical images and the virtual model post-surgery, performs coordinate registration through marker-based displacement tracking of the robotic end-effector and bone fragments, and generates control signals by mapping feature points to the origin of the robotic tool. This approach reduces registration time and improves surgical accuracy. It can be utilized in orthopedic and oral and maxillofacial fracture reduction surgeries, enhancing the consistency of surgical outcomes by shortening registration time and reducing reliance on the surgeon's skill level.

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Key Features:

• Virtual model generation unit that sets feature points on the actual model of the bone fragment pre-operatively and generates a virtual model post-operatively
• First registration unit that aligns the physical spatial coordinate system of the robotic end-effector with the spatial coordinate system of the image
• Second registration unit that aligns coordinate systems based on the displacement of the robotic end-effector and the bone fragment
• Origin setting unit that establishes feature points as the origin of the coordinate system for the robotic tool, and a control unit that generates control signals

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This invention was developed with support from the Ministry of Health and Welfare's project for the development of clinical-centered maxillofacial surgical platforms and transparent display-based image-guided maxillofacial surgery technology.