Development and preliminary evaluation of an autonomous surgical system for oral and maxillofacial surgery

Background: Human-related factors affect the accuracy and safety of the oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS). This study proposed an autonomous surgical system aiming to conduct the OMS under the assistance and surveillance of the surgeon. Methods: A markerless navigation module and a compact OMS robot were seamlessly integrated into this system. The specifications of each module and the working concept of the system were elaborated in this paper. A drilling experiment was conducted on five 3D-printed mandible models to test the pose detecting capability and evaluate the operational performance. Results: The experiment showed that this system could successfully guide the robot finishing the operation regardless of the mandible pose. The accuracy of software and hardware are acceptable and potential performance improvement can be achieved in positioning accuracy. Conclusion: This system proposed a novel concept and a practical solution to decrease the human-related factors on the OMS, which may change the role of the surgeon in the future operating room and finally benefit the outcomes of OMS.