Acoustical process control for cranial aperture using robot-assisted laser-osteotomy

Recently there is a huge demand for minimally invasive surgery methods and navigated guiding of the surgical instruments to increase precision during opening the human skull. A minimal traumatization of the patient should be achieved for ethical and economic reasons. To guarantee a careful surgical procedure, the process forces should be minimized and the soft tissue shouldn’t be damaged while removing a piece of the cranial bone.

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is currently working on this task. The main goal is to develop a process control concept based on acoustical emissions for cranial aperture using laser ablation. During the laser process the control unit shall detect the transition between the bone material and cerebral membrane to stop the ablation. The first investigations dealt with the basic understanding of the acoustical emission and the examination of the signals using two different laser systems. The objective of the current work is to define a reliable abort criterion based on the analysis of the acoustical signals using various mathematical methods. The results represent the basis for the development of the process control. The following future task is to investigate particular ablation strategies to increase process stability, efficiency and robustness of the surgical intervention using a combination of both laser systems.

Contact: Christoph Ruhs, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), wbk Institute of Production Science
christoph.ruhs@kit.edu