Comparative Analysis of Autonomous Robotic and Manual Techniques for Ultrasonic Sacral Osteotomy: A Preliminary Study

TL;DR

This study introduces a robotic ultrasonic osteotomy system for sacral surgery, demonstrating significantly improved accuracy and safety over manual techniques in phantom experiments, paving the way for advanced surgical procedures.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel autonomous ultrasonic sacral osteotomy robotic system with integrated control and tracking, showing superior precision and safety compared to manual methods.

Findings

Robotic system achieved 0.11 mm trajectory accuracy.

Robotic system maintained precise depth control at 8.1 mm.

Manual technique showed over-penetration of 16 mm.

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce an autonomous Ultrasonic Sacral Osteotomy (USO) robotic system that integrates an ultrasonic osteotome with a seven-degree-of-freedom (DoF) robotic manipulator guided by an optical tracking system. To assess multi-directional control along both the surface trajectory and cutting depth of this system, we conducted quantitative comparisons between manual USO (MUSO) and robotic USO (RUSO) in Sawbones phantoms under identical osteotomy conditions. The RUSO system achieved sub-millimeter trajectory accuracy (0.11 mm RMSE), an order of magnitude improvement over MUSO (1.10 mm RMSE). Moreover, MUSO trials showed substantial over-penetration (16.0 mm achieved vs. 8.0 mm target), whereas the RUSO system maintained precise depth control (8.1 mm). These results demonstrate that robotic procedures can effectively overcome the critical limitations of manual osteotomy, establishing a foundation for safer and more precise sacral resections.