Maxillofacial surgery using virtual force feedback

Surgery in the maxillofacial area assimilates complex anatomic frames with high-risk structures and high demands for functional and aesthetic consequences. Conventional surgery needs that the surgeon transfers complex anatomic and surgical planning information using spatial sense and experience. The surgical procedure depends entirely on the manual skills of the operator. The development of virtual force feedback haptic devices and image-guided systems offer new revolutionary opportunities to perform such types of critical surgeries. Integrating pre-surgical 3D patient model in haptic environment and surgical robot with navigation system resulted in great improvement and progress in the surgery and patient care. The aim of this project is to design the prototype maxillofacial surgical robot having Master-Slave configuration. Virtual Force feedback and image-guided system are introduced in surgery. As a result, the surgeons are able to simulate the surgery with patient's 3D model by virtual force feedback haptic tool and then using same pattern, perform real surgery via image guided system and prototype maxillofacial surgery robot. The experiments show that the prototype maxillofacial surgical robot is given satisfactory results with virtual force feedback haptic device.