US 2017/0245830 A1 · SYSTEM AND PROCESS FOR ULTRASONIC DETERMINATION OF LONG BONE ORIENTATION

Abstract

Systems and process are provided for a tool to create a registration matrix for a bone in three dimensional workspaces relative to a system using the absence of an ultrasonic reflection from an ultrasonic sensor attached to a tracking system to build the registration matrix model. The system has hardware and software that creates an absence of ultrasonic reflection, and utilizes the information to identify the location and orientation of a set of conic volumes in order to build an estimate of the position and orientation of the bone relative to the base system, and to use the position and orientation changes to update the registration and to detect bone motion. Embodiments of invention provide a process of registering part or all of a bone without directly touching the bone using ultrasound, and as a result support a non-invasive or less-invasive approach to bone registration and bone motion detection for a system.

Claims18

Dependent claims

An ultrasonic system for determination of bone orientation comprising:

a base system;
a tracking system;
a plurality of ultrasonic sensors tracked by said tracking system;
and
software operating on a computer to create a registration matrix model for a bone in a three dimensional workspace relative to said base system using an absence of an ultrasonic reflection from said plurality of ultrasonic sensors to build the registration model of the bone.

2 more elements

A process of preparing for a surgical procedure on a bone within a patient by calculating a position and an orientation of the bone within a measurement volume relative to a base system comprising:

measuring a distance to the bone in a conic region emanating from an ultrasonic sensor at a distance where an orientation and a volume of the conic region is known;
moving the conic region of the ultrasonic sensor within the measurement volume;
generating a first sweep motion to measure the distance within the conic region that intersects with the solid volume of the bone within the measurement volume;
generating a second sweep motion of said ultrasonic sensor not to measure the distance of the solid volume of the bone when the solid volume is not in the conic region;
determining the position and the orientation of said ultrasonic sensor within the measurement volume during measurement;
determining the position and the orientation of the measurement volume and the position and the orientation of the bone with respect to the base system;
and
communicating to a surgeon the position and the orientation of the bone preparing for the surgical procedure on the bone within the patient.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and process for ultrasonic determination of long bone orientation

Life of this patent

System and process for ultrasonic determination of long bone orientation

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18