Milling accuracy in robot assisted orthopaedic surgery

Experiments with industrial robot systems showed that the accuracy of these systems is not sufficient for many surgical applications. Hence, we developed an algorithm which takes the trajectory generator of the robot control system into account. Furthermore, the inhomogeneous milling characteristics of a bone are predicted by its computed tomography (CT). Results from experiments demonstrated that the demanded accuracy can be achieved using this approach. Since December 1997 several patients have been treated with our surgical robot CASPAR, which encapsulates this strategy in the field of total hip replacement (THR).