A Patient-Specific Framework for Autonomous Spinal Fixation via a Steerable Drilling Robot

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel image-guided robotic framework utilizing a steerable drilling robot for autonomous, patient-specific spinal fixation, aiming to improve minimally invasive procedures in osteoporotic patients.

Contribution

It introduces a first-of-its-kind framework combining pre-operative planning, calibration, and real-time navigation with a steerable drill robot for autonomous spinal procedures.

Findings

Successful execution of J-shape drilling in vertebral phantoms

Demonstrated accuracy and safety in robotic navigation

Potential for clinical translation in minimally invasive spine surgery

Abstract

In this paper, with the goal of enhancing the minimally invasive spinal fixation procedure in osteoporotic patients, we propose a first-of-its-kind image-guided robotic framework for performing an autonomous and patient-specific procedure using a unique concentric tube steerable drilling robot (CT-SDR). Particularly, leveraging a CT-SDR, we introduce the concept of J-shape drilling based on a pre-operative trajectory planned in CT scan of a patient followed by appropriate calibration, registration, and navigation steps to safely execute this trajectory in real-time using our unique robotic setup. To thoroughly evaluate the performance of our framework, we performed several experiments on two different vertebral phantoms designed based on CT scan of real patients.