I-Corps: An Orthopedic Surgical Robot

Award ID: 2005570

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will be the development of a device for treating long bone fractures using robotic technology. Approximately 350,000 proximal femur fractures and 65,000 femur shaft fractures occur in the United States annually. Current surgical procedures are manual, and patients experience a myriad of complications to align femur fractures, including difficulty in achieving accurate reduction, subsequent malalignment of bone fragments, high x-ray radiation, nonunion complications, and soft tissue damage. The proposed surgical robot alleviates these complications and reduces the costs of surgery by decreasing procedure times, the number of assistant personnel in the operating room, radiation exposure, hospital stays, risk of infections, and blood loss. This project paves the way for more human-robot collaboration in the operating room. This I-Corps project is based on the development of technology for a novel surgical robot for orthopedic surgeries, especially for long bone fracture alignment. The robot has a unique architecture with a frontally open deign. This facilitates positioning the leg inside the robot and provides a large workspace for surgical maneuvers. Using its own imaging technology, the robot will drive the bone fragments into correct alignment and holds them in position for the duration of the surgery. The focus of the surgical robot is for treating femur fractures in the hip and femoral shaft. Unlike traditional femur fracture surgeries, this technology will enable the surgeon to accurately apply large traction forces, precisely align the fractured bone, and significantly reduce radiation exposure. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman