CAD software helps design surgical robot
A
SolidWorks Corporation product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jul 15, 2008
Mako Surgical used SolidWorks software to design the Tactile Guidance System a robotic arm system that controls surgeons' movements through the use of tactile resistance technology.
Makoplasty enables orthopedic surgeons to treat patient-specific, early to mid-stage osteoarthritic knee disease with consistent, reproducible precision.
The procedure employs the Mako Tactile Guidance System (TGS), a surgeon-interactive robotic arm system that controls surgeons' movements through the use of tactile resistance technology.
Computer-generated virtual surfaces guide surgeons and the robotic arm along their planned path and focus cutting on patient-specific 3D visualisations, based on pre-operative imaging.
The surgeon can confidently make complex tissue-sparing and bone-conserving cuts.
Any necessary adjustments can be made during the operation and patients can recover faster.
Mako Surgical used SolidWorks software to design the TGS, which uses proprietary cable-drives instead of gears to make the robotic arm extremely human-interactive, enabling very high-fidelity tactile response.
"The implants and instruments benefit from SolidWorks' rapidly improving surfacing capabilities and the TGS design benefits from SolidWorks' large assembly and motion simulation capabilities", said Mako CTO, Senior Vice-President and co-founder Rony Abovitz.
"We also use SolidWorks to design the virtual volumes - the safe cutting zones, if you will - that guide the surgeon in reshaping patients' bone surfaces prior to implanting".
"SolidWorks handles all of these jobs well and the software is easy for our engineers to learn no matter what platform they've learned on".
The Makoplasty design effort has been under way since 1997, tracing its surgical navigation and medical robotics roots to a wide range of licensed and internally developed technologies, including the MIT Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab, Northwestern University's Lab for Intelligent Machines and the Cleveland Clinic.
One of the original seats of SolidWorks was used by William Townsend, CEO of Barrett Technology and the co-inventor of core cable-drive robot technologies (WAM arm) at the MIT AI Lab.
"Bill Townsend introduced me to SolidWorks co-founder Jon Hirschtick in the late 1990s, the two had been friends for some time".
"Since the introduction, we have had a long connection and affinity with SolidWorks - the karma is good and the results we have produced to date with it have been great", said Abovitz.
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