Universitât Bern

Tom Williamson

Stefan Weber

Brett J Bell

Nicolas Gerber

Juan Anso

Kate Gerber

Multi-component systems and methods for determining the proximity of surgical tools to key anatomical features are provided. The inventive systems and methods can be applied in any surgical procedure requiring precision to avoid damage to key anatomical features such as nerves, with a particular example being the robotic cochlear implantation minimally invasive approach to cochlear implantation. Use of purpose built surgical robots, electromyography and tissue impedance, stereotactic tracking and drilling force/bone density measurements are all key components, with inputs from these various modalities being dynamically weighted. In the example of robotic cochlear implantation, the inventive concepts are used to provide key surgical guidance so as to avoid damage to the facial nerve and the chorda tympani, among other anatomical features.

System for determining proximity of a surgical tool to key anatomical features

The invention relates to a system for estimating the spatial position (pose) of a tool () within an object (), particularly in the form of a human bone that is to be machined with said tool, comprising: a sensor () being designed to be coupled to said tool (), which sensor () is further designed to generate an sensor output signal () upon machining of said object () along an actual trajectory (), which sensor output signal () depends on a material property of said object along said actual trajectory (), an analyzing means being designed to determine a correlation between said sensor output signal () upon machining said object () and a plurality of pre-determined candidate output signals (), each candidate output signal () being generated in beforehand using said material property along an associated model trajectory () in a model of said object (), and wherein said analyzing means is designed to estimate a spatial position of the tool () within the object () using the model trajectory () whose associated candidate output signal () has the highest correlation with the sensor output signal (), for instance. The invention further relates to a method for estimating the pose of the tool (), as well as a computer program product.

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Bern, Switzerland

Tom Williamson