Robot cell for craniofacial surgery

Using a robot in craniofacial surgery might seem to be a rather far fetched idea. However, a high level of precision, skill and experience is necessary in order to perform maxillofacial interventions successfully and harmonically. Thus the Institute of Process Control and Robotics has devised a complex computer aided surgical system which supports the surgeon before and during the operation. On the one hand preoperative plans can be generated by using a three-dimensional computer model of the patient's skull. On the other hand the best planning device is rather useless if there is no adequate means at hand to intraoperatively transpose the established plan with the required accuracy. In this paper we present our surgical robotic system for craniofacial surgery and give an insight into some of its features.