CN113365572A

CN113365572A - Compact dental robot system

Info

Publication number: CN113365572A
Application number: CN202080011728.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王峥; 李婧; 慎重; 林宇恒; 熊体超; 鲍浩能
Original assignee: University of Hong Kong HKU
Current assignee: University of Hong Kong HKU
Priority date: 2019-01-31
Filing date: 2020-01-22
Publication date: 2021-09-07
Anticipated expiration: 2040-01-22
Also published as: CN113365572B; WO2020156414A1

Abstract

A robotic manipulator system (300) and method for performing dental procedures are provided. A robotic manipulator system (300) includes a robotic manipulator (305) configured to perform a dental procedure; a plurality of motors (315); a tendon-sheath transfer system (310) configured to actuate at least the robotic manipulator (305); an imaging system (371,372) configured to monitor the dental procedure; and a control system (320) coupled to the plurality of motors (315) configured to control movement of a robotic manipulator (305) for performing the dental procedure. The robotic manipulator system (300) may be used for dental drilling procedures and is two times smaller in size and workspace than conventional robotic dental drilling systems.

Description

Compact dental robot system

Cross Reference to Related Applications

This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No.62/799,460 filed on 31/1/2019, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, including any tables, figures, or drawings.

Background

Dental problems are common in daily life and if patients cannot be treated properly in time, they can be very serious and painful, affecting quality of life and general health [4 ].

However, there is a global shortage of dental labor, making most patients unable to be treated in a timely manner. Therefore, it has been proposed to apply robots to dental procedures. Since most dental procedures rely entirely on the manual skills of dentists, the robot can not only improve the efficiency of dental procedures by controlled motion, but also improve the treatment effect by preventing human error [6 ].

Robots for dental use can generally be divided into two categories [7,8], one for training by simulating human reactions during dental treatment [9-12], and another for assisting dental procedures [13-16 ]. For the latter, a number of designs have been proposed for different dental procedures [17,18], the most advanced of which are Yomi issued by Neocis and the developed dental robot [19 ]. Yomi obtained FDA approval in the last year and was mainly used for dental implant surgery. With its navigation system, Yomi can provide physical guidance to the dentist to accurately locate the tooth that needs to be restored. The proposed dental robot [19] has performed clinical trials of dental implant surgery in which the robotic manipulator is capable of automatically locating caries.

Both types of manipulators are retrofitted from current industrial manipulators, which are too large in size and working space to be used in dental applications [20 ].

One of the main challenges in designing robotic systems for dental applications is that inevitable tendon elongation will eventually lead to vibrations, which will affect performance, especially when precision and stability are required. Due to the compliance between the joints, undesirable vibrations often occur during operation of the robot, particularly for robots having multiple degrees of freedom. For tasks requiring precision, additional time is required to wait for vibration dampening, which can limit force and position control at the end effector [21 ]. The situation becomes worse for machining and drilling procedures, where the vibratory load may excite resonance if the lowest natural frequency is not sufficiently higher than the load vibration frequency.

Disclosure of Invention

There is a continuing need in the art for improved designs and techniques for robotic systems to reduce the burden on the dentist, improve the efficiency of dental procedures, and reduce human error during treatment.

Embodiments of the present invention relate to robotic manipulator systems and methods for performing dental procedures.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a robotic manipulator system for performing a dental procedure may include a robotic manipulator configured to perform a dental procedure; a plurality of motors; a tendon-sheath delivery system configured to actuate at least the robotic manipulator; an imaging system configured to monitor a dental procedure; a control system coupled to the plurality of motors configured to control movement of a robotic manipulator for performing the dental procedure. The robot manipulator includes a plurality of robot arms, a plurality of joints connecting adjacent ones of the plurality of robot arms, and an end effector provided at a distal end of the robot arm. The tendon-sheath delivery system may be configured to connect a plurality of motors to a plurality of joints. The plurality of joints may include two revolute joints, two cylindrical joints, and a wrist joint having two crossed joints. Further, the robotic manipulator is configured to have multiple degrees of freedom of movement. The robotic manipulator system may further comprise a haptic feedback device coupled to the controller for remote operation. The haptic feedback device may be configured to provide the end position of the haptic feedback device to the control system in real time such that the robot manipulator is configured to move by the motor in the same trajectory as the trajectory of the haptic feedback device. Further, the imaging system may include a plurality of image capturing devices.

In certain embodiments of the present invention, a method is provided for controlling a robotic manipulator system comprising a robotic manipulator having a plurality of robotic arms, an end effector, and a plurality of joints configured to perform a dental procedure; a plurality of motors; a tendon-sheath delivery system configured to actuate at least the robotic manipulator; an imaging system configured to monitor a dental procedure; a control system configured to control movement of a robotic manipulator for performing a dental procedure. The method may include controlling, by the controller, sequential movement of a plurality of motors that drive the joints to produce movement of the end effector to perform the dental procedure. The control may include calculating the resolution of the joint angles and the continuous output torque of the joints, calculating the motion and force transfer of the robotic manipulator, or calculating the positional accuracy of the robotic manipulator in three dimensions based on the relationship between the joint angles. A transformation matrix may be generated based on the Denavit-hartenberg (dh) parameters and the position of the distal joint of the joint may be calculated by multiplying the transformation matrices in turn. The position and orientation of the end effector of the robotic manipulator is obtained by sensors generating a position map for use in the remote operation of the robotic manipulator system. Further, the robotic manipulator system may further comprise a slave system comprising a motor and a plurality of robotic arms, the slave system replicating the motion of the robotic manipulator system based on the mapping of positions in the cartesian coordinate system. The joint angle may be converted to a motor angle based on the resolution of each motor and the relationship between the measured motor angle and the joint angle. When the motor is set to the speed control mode, the speed of the motor is determined by the difference between the target motor angle and the actual motor angle and is processed by a predetermined motion control mechanism. The robotic manipulator system may further comprise a haptic feedback device coupled to the controller for remote operation, wherein only when a wrist point of the haptic feedback device moves into a predetermined space, a position and an orientation of an end of the haptic feedback device is determined to be valid and converted into a non-zero velocity command of the motor to move the robotic manipulator; otherwise, the robotic manipulator remains stationary.

Drawings

Fig. 1A and 1B are schematic views of an unconstrained robotic manipulator system and a robotic manipulator system operating in close proximity to a work surface, respectively, according to the prior art.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a robotic system for operating on teeth of a human oral cavity coupled to a dentist console according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3A is a schematic diagram of an abstract coordinate system of a robotic manipulator system according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 3B is a schematic diagram of a particular design of a robotic manipulator system according to an embodiment of the present invention, showing how the joints are connected to the motors.

Fig. 4 shows a coordinate system of a working space of a robot manipulator of a robot system based on kinematic analysis according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figures 5A and 5C are side views of a pair of tendons connecting the interior and exterior of a cylindrical joint and actuating rotation in clockwise and counterclockwise directions, respectively, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 5B is a side view of a revolute joint rotating about a shaft perpendicular to its distal and proximal ends, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 5D is a side view illustrating a tendon-sheath system of a wrist joint according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 5E is a side view of the tendon-sheath mechanism of the robotic manipulator system showing how the joints are connected to the motors according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6A and 6B show prototypes of a binocular display and a camera, respectively, of an imaging system of a robot system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6C is a graph illustrating aspects of an imaging system according to an embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a control method and configuration of a robot system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 8A is a schematic diagram of a configuration of a robotic system according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 8B is a schematic illustration of the mapped trajectories of the end effector of the robotic manipulator and the haptic feedback device of the dentist console according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 8C is a schematic diagram of a configuration of a haptic feedback device according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 9A illustrates a prototype of a robotic manipulator integrated with an imaging system according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 9B illustrates a left eye view of a dental bur of a robotic manipulator operating on a tooth according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 9C shows a right eye view of a dental bur of a robotic manipulator operating on a tooth according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 10 is a graph of experimental results of motion and force transfer tests of the first four joints of a robotic manipulator according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 11 is a graph showing a relationship between input torque and output torque based on the results of the first four joints of fig. 10, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

System design and analysis

A. System design

Referring to fig. 2, a robotic system 300 may include a robotic manipulator 305 having multiple (e.g., six) degrees of freedom (DOF) and having an end effector 365, such as a dental bur, a tendon-sheath transfer system 310 configured to actuate at least the robotic manipulator 305, a motor train 315 having multiple (e.g., six) motors for motion control, and a controller 320 coupled to the multiple motors configured to control the motion of the robotic manipulator 305 for performing a dental procedure. The robotic system 300 may be coupled to a dentist console 330, which includes an imaging system 371/372 connected to the support 350, a stereoscopic display 335 connected to the support 350, and a haptic feedback device 340 for remote operation.

As shown in fig. 2, the robotic manipulator 305 may include a plurality of articulated robotic arms connected by plastic wire (PLA +)3D printing. Motors 315 (such as the one provided by dynaxiel) are coupled to the joints through tendon-sheath system 310 and each motor 315 may be connected to one joint. With the tendon-sheath system 310, the actuation portion can be distanced from the joint, and thus the scale and weight of the robotic system 300 can be greatly reduced, as can the workspace.

Further, during a dental procedure, the dentist can hold the haptic feedback device 340 (such as a touch 3D stylus) and provide its tip position to the controller 320 in real time, so that when the controller 320 sends appropriate instructions to the motor 315, the robotic manipulator 305 moves in the same trajectory as the trajectory of the haptic feedback device 340.

B. Kinematic analysis

The robotic manipulator 305 may include a plurality of joints, for example six joints, including two revolute joints, two cylindrical joints, and a wrist joint with two intersecting joints. Detailed machine design specifications are shown in table II.

The resolution of the joint angle and the joint continuous output torque are calculated according to specifications of motors such as motors of dynamix MX series and PRO series. The motion and force transfer results are also considered and translated.

The positional accuracy is calculated in three dimensions of Δ x, Δ y, and Δ z according to the relationship between the joint angles. The wire elongation is estimated by calculating the elastic elongation of a wire having a total length of, for example, 350mm, a diameter of, for example, 0.68mm, and a load of, for example, 300 g. Both results are shown in Table II, while the Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) parameters are listed in Table I.

TABLE I

TABLE II

In one embodiment, the transformation matrices may be written according to the DH parameters, and the position of the last joint may be calculated by multiplying these transformation matrices in turn. The DH parameters, which are four parameters associated with a specific convention for attaching the reference coordinate system to the links of the spatial kinematic chain, have been widely used for kinematic analysis of manipulators.

Fig. 3A is a schematic view of an abstract coordinate system of a robotic manipulator system, and fig. 3B is a schematic view of a detailed design of the robotic manipulator system, showing how the joints are connected to the motors. As shown in FIG. 3A, assume that the starting point is (0, 0, 0, 1)^TMarked as (x)₀，y₀，z₀) The final joint center position is obtained by the following equation:

x₆＝cθ₁(l₃cθ₂+l₄sθ₂₊₃) (1)

y₆＝sθ₁(l₃cθ₂+l₄sθ₂₊₃) (2)

z₆＝l₄cθ₂₊₃-l₃sθ₂+l₀ (3)

for inverse kinematics analysis, assume the position and orientation of the 6 th joint is (x)₆，y₆，z₆，α₆，β₆，γ₆) From this position and orientation, the angle of each joint can be calculated. Since the last three joints cross each other, the position of the last joint is only related to the first three joints. And the result can be calculated based on the following equation.

Wherein z is₆′＝z₆-l₀，sθ＝sinθ，cθ＝cosθ。

The remaining joint angles may be based on a rotation transformation matrix

Is calculated according to

Computing rotational transformation matrices

Based on kinematic analysis, the working space of the robot 305 is depicted as shown in fig. 4, where the angular range of the cylindrical joints is 90 degrees and the remaining joints are half of their full rotational range. Furthermore, a sketch of a human tooth is depicted in fig. 4, which may be completely covered by the working space of a dental bur 365 mounted on the robot manipulator 305.

C. Tendon-sheath system

Tendon-sheath system 310 has been widely used in surgical robotics, particularly in laparoscopic surgery, where space limitations can be greatly alleviated by removing the actuation components. The tendon-sheath system 310 of embodiments of the present invention provides advantages including operational flexibility in dental procedures.

The structure of the joint is designed based on its motion characteristics. Thus, in embodiments of the present invention, there are three types of joints, namely, a cylindrical joint, a revolute joint, and a wrist joint.

Each cylindrical joint comprises two parts, an outer part and an inner part, which rotate along a central shaft and transmit the rotational motion to its proximal joint. As shown in fig. 5A and 5C, a pair of tendons are used to connect the two parts and actuate rotation in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.

The revolute joint shown in figure 5B rotates about an axis perpendicular to its distal and proximal ends. A pair of tendons is placed mirror-symmetrically through holes in the distal and proximal ends, and the other revolute joint is only of a different size.

The wrist joint is based on a universal joint design. The gimbal is fixed at both ends to two separate parts and is connected to a plurality of, e.g. four, wires, one in each direction. In order to suppress interference between crossing wires, the movement trace of the wires is limited to a sphere having the same center as the center of the gimbal. When one wire is stretched the opposite wire will relax, while the crossing wires will not be affected, because the resulting movement is along a direction perpendicular to their surface.

Figure 5D is a side view of the tendon-sheath mechanism showing the wrist joint, and figure 5E is a side view of the tendon-sheath mechanism of the robotic manipulator system showing how the joint is connected to the motor, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

D. Imaging system

Referring to fig. 6A and 6B, the imaging system may include two imaging devices, such as a camera 371/372 positioned near the teeth and a stereoscopic display 335 (such as a binocular display) for the dentist to monitor the positioning and drilling process during the dental procedure. The distance between the two displays of the binocular display 335 may be adjusted to fit the interpupillary distance to different users of the imaging system.

E. Control and system integration

Fig. 7 shows a control method and configuration of a robot system 300 including a remote operation section.

The haptic feedback device 340 may include a plurality of, e.g., six degrees of freedom, and the position and orientation of its end effector may be obtained by built-in sensors for position mapping for remote operation of the robotic system 300.

The configuration of the haptic feedback device 340 is shown in fig. 8C, while the configuration of the robotic manipulator 305 is shown in fig. 8A.

Referring to fig. 8B, a slave system including a motor and a plurality of robot arms may replicate the motion of a master system including a tactile feedback device 340 operated by a dentist based on position mapping in a cartesian coordinate system. The dentist can adjust his/her actions based on the visual feedback of the stereoscopic imaging system.

Rather than using up the entire working space of the haptic feedback device, only the cube-shaped volume labeled blue box in fig. 8C is selected to map to the similar cube-shaped volume labeled red box in fig. 8A of the manipulator working space.

Only when the wrist point of the haptic feedback device 340 moves into the selected cubic volume will its end position and orientation be determined to be valid and converted to a non-zero speed command for the motor; otherwise, the robotic system 300 will remain in place.

The coordinate system used is rotated and the origin is translated to match the configuration of the robot 305. By applying a factor K of less than 1_pMultiplied by the displacement between adjacent positions of the haptic feedback device 340 to scale down the motion, while the direction is multiplied by another factor K_θ. By adjusting these two scale factors, limited motion and preserved direction can be achieved. The post-mapping transformed positions and orientations are combined for inverse kinematics analysis, before which a boundary test is performed to limit the final position of the end effector of the robotic arm to a small range.

Fig. 8B shows the trajectory of the end effector and haptic feedback device 340 after mapping.

And then converting the joint angle into a motor angle based on the resolution of each motor and the relationship between the motor angle and the joint angle measured in the motion transfer experiment. When the motor is set to the speed control mode, the speed thereof is controlled by the target motor angle gamma and the actual motor angle gamma^′The difference between them is determined and processed by appropriate motion control.

Fig. 9A illustrates a robotic manipulator integrated with an imaging system. The diameter of the two cameras may be, for example, 5.5mm and the focal length of the two cameras may be, for example, 20mm, which is suitable for use in a human mouth. The light intensity of the LED integrated with the camera can be adjusted to make the dental procedure more convenient. As shown in fig. 9A, the camera is fixed to the stand, while the robot manipulator is freely movable.

Experimental validation of motion and force transfer

The relationship between the motor angle and the joint angle is measured. The experimental results for the first four joints are shown in fig. 10. It can be seen that the relationship between the motor angle and the joint angle fits well into a linear relationship and that the coefficients vary for different diameters of the mounting parts of the motor and different sizes of the joints.

In one embodiment, the diameter of the mounting member may be set to, for example, 36mm for a cylindrical joint, and 12mm for a revolute joint and a wrist joint. In order to improve positioning accuracy and output payload in consideration of space limitations, the diameters of the revolute joints in the rotational direction may be set to, for example, 50mm and 60mm, 47mm and 27mm for the two cylindrical joints, and 80mm for the wrist joint, respectively. The difference in ratio can also be observed from motion transfer measurements.

The relationship of the input torque and the output torque is measured in the same manner. The results for the first four joints when considering and converting the speed ratios between the motors and the joints are shown in fig. 11. Thus, the data reflects the energy loss due to friction between the tendon and the sheath. It is also observed from the data obtained that approximately 50% of the input torque is lost during transmission.

The robotic system of the present invention is used to assist in dental drilling procedures and may be two times smaller in size and workspace than conventional robotic dental drilling systems. The dental robotic system of the present invention is designed to reduce the burden on the dentist, improve the efficiency of dental procedures, and reduce human error during treatment.

All patents, patent applications, provisional applications, and publications mentioned or cited herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety, including all figures and tables, so long as they do not contradict the explicit teachings of this specification.

It is understood that the examples and embodiments described herein are for illustrative purposes only and that various modifications or changes in light thereof will be suggested to persons skilled in the art and are to be included within the spirit and purview of this application and scope of the appended claims. Furthermore, any element or limitation of any invention or embodiment thereof disclosed herein can be combined with any and/or all other elements or limitations disclosed herein (alone or in any combination) or any other invention or embodiment thereof, and all such combinations are considered to be within the scope of the invention, but not limited thereto.

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Claims

1. A robotic manipulator system for performing dental procedures, comprising:

a robotic manipulator configured to perform a dental procedure;

a plurality of motors;

a tendon-sheath transfer system configured to actuate at least the robotic manipulator;

an imaging system configured to monitor the dental procedure; and

a control system coupled to the plurality of motors configured to control movement of the robotic manipulator for performing the dental procedure.

2. The robotic manipulator system according to claim 1, wherein the robotic manipulator comprises a plurality of robotic arms, a plurality of joints connecting adjacent ones of the plurality of robotic arms, and an end effector disposed at a distal end of the robotic arms.

3. The robotic manipulator system according to claim 2, wherein the end effector is a drilling device.

4. The robotic manipulator system according to claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the robotic manipulator is configured to have a plurality of degrees of freedom of movement.

5. The robotic manipulator system according to any one of claims 1-4, further comprising a haptic feedback device coupled to the controller for remote operation.

6. The robotic manipulator system according to claim 5, wherein the haptic feedback device is a touch 3D stylus.

7. A robotic manipulator system according to claim 5 or claim 6, wherein the haptic feedback device is configured to provide the end position of the haptic feedback device to the control system in real time such that the robotic manipulator is configured to be moved by a motor in the same trajectory as the trajectory of the haptic feedback device.

8. The robotic manipulator system according to any one of claims 1-7, wherein the imaging system comprises a plurality of image capturing devices.

9. The robotic manipulator system according to any one of claims 2-8, wherein the tendon-sheath transfer system is configured to connect the plurality of motors to the plurality of joints.

10. The robotic manipulator system according to any of claims 2-8, wherein the plurality of joints comprises two revolute joints, two cylindrical joints and one wrist joint with two cross joints.

11. A method for controlling a robotic manipulator system comprising a robotic manipulator having a plurality of robotic arms, an end effector, and a plurality of joints configured to perform a dental procedure; a plurality of motors; a tendon-sheath transfer system configured to actuate at least the robotic manipulator; an imaging system configured to monitor the dental procedure; a control system configured to control motion of the robotic manipulator for performing the dental procedure, the method comprising:

controlling, by a controller, sequential movement of the plurality of motors that drive the joints to produce movement of the end effector to perform the dental procedure.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the controlling comprises calculating a resolution of joint angles and a continuous output torque of the joint.

13. A method according to claim 11 or claim 12, wherein the controlling comprises calculating the movement and force transfer of the robotic manipulator.

14. The method according to any of claims 11-13, wherein the controlling comprises calculating the positional accuracy of the robotic manipulator in three dimensions based on a relation between the joint angles.

15. The method of any one of claims 11-14, wherein a transformation matrix is generated based on DH parameters and the position of the distal joint of the joint is calculated by sequentially multiplying the transformation matrices.

16. The method according to any of claims 11-15, wherein the position and orientation of the end effector of the robotic manipulator is obtained by sensors generating a position map of a remote operation of the robotic manipulator system.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the robotic manipulator system further comprises a slave system comprising a plurality of robotic arms and a motor, the slave system movements replicating the robotic manipulator system movements based on a mapping of positions in a cartesian coordinate system.

18. The method according to any of claims 12-17, wherein the joint angle is converted to a motor angle based on a resolution of each motor and a relationship between the measured motor angle and joint angle.

19. A method according to any of claims 12-18, wherein the speed of the motor is determined by the difference between the target motor angle and the actual motor angle and processed by a motion control mechanism when the motor is set to a speed control mode.

20. The method according to any of claims 11-19, wherein the robotic manipulator system further comprises a haptic feedback device coupled to the controller for remote operation, wherein only when a wrist point of the haptic feedback device is moved into a predetermined space, a position and an orientation of an end of the haptic feedback device is determined to be valid and translated into a non-zero velocity command of the motor to move the robotic manipulator; otherwise, the robotic manipulator remains stationary.