A Test Bed Model of an Advanced Handheld Bone Drilling System

Abstract

Modern medical drilling systems utilized in bone and joint surgery are characterized with relatively low level of automation, i.e., with no process monitoring and/or adaptive control characteristics, which could potentially prevent mechanical and thermal bone damages. The quality of the drilling process depends solely on the operator skills and tool characteristics. Therefore, a group of research activities have been focused to the development of an advanced next generation hand-held drilling machine. It should provide mechanical and thermal monitoring capabilities of the tool and bone, automated tool feed movement with potential implementation of high-speed drilling regimes, as well as the application of an advanced adaptive control algorithms for cutting forces and drilling temperature limitation. The system would reduce human influence in drill guidance by allowing operator to define drilling location and desired tool direction/angle, while all other activities would be performed autonomously by the machine monitoring and control system. The test bed platform of such system which will be used in the final prototype shaping is presented in this