Hands-on robot-assisted fracture reduction system guided by a linear guidance constraints controller using a pre-operatively planned goal pose

Background: In robot-assisted fracture reduction systems, the fine alignment of the fractured bone and its path planning are still of issues that need to be resolved.

Methods: A novel linear guidance constraints (LGC) controller guides a robot along the shortest path to align a distal fracture segment and a proximal one. In addition, the surgeon can modify the path whenever s/he wants.

Results: When the LGC controller is used in the experiment on a femoral bone model with simulated muscles, the fracture reduction time was measured to be 35.6 ± 16.4 seconds, while the position and the angle errors were 0.41 ± 0.61 mm, and 0.22 ± 0.80°, respectively. The proposed controller reduced the reduction time by 78.1%, the translational error by 91.6%, and the angular error by 95.4%, compared with the cases without the LGC controller.

Conclusions: It was proven that the proposed scheme reduced the reduction time and the pose error of the fracture alignment, and that it is effective to alleviate the maneuvering load.