Kinematic Modeling of a Trepanation Surgical Robot System

This paper presents the concept of a parallel medical robotic service system to assist in a surgical procedure involving precise exploratory trepanation holes in a patient's skull. The target position and orientation of the trepanation tool in the cranial region is determined using a prior intracranial image analysis using an external medical imaging system. A trepanning actuation system is attached to the end-effector of the parallel robot. The end-effector will act as an accurate positioner for the trepanning drill in the medical intervention area. The conceptual design of the mechanical actuation subsystem of a trepanning robot was developed in the SolidWorks 2022 software environment. The virtual model of the kinematic chain of the robot and the assumed design parameters were used to analytically derive the equations describing the inverse kinematics task. An analysis of the forward kinematics task of the parallel manipulator was also carried out using analytical and numerical methods. A workspace analysis was performed using Matlab based on the kinematic model of the parallel robot. This paper significantly advances the field by presenting the conceptual design of the actuation subsystem, deriving the kinematics equations, conducting a thorough workspace analysis, and establishing a foundation for subsequent control-algorithm development.