Navigation system and method for removing a volume of tissue from a patient
AssigneeStryker Corporation
InventorsDavid Gene Bowling, John Michael Stuart, Jerry A. Culp, Donald W. Malackowski, Jose Luis Moctezuma de la Barrera, Patrick Roessler, Joel N. Beer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A navigation system for use with a surgical manipulator operable in manual or semi-autonomous modes and a method for removing a volume of tissue from a patient. The navigation system includes a tracker for attaching to the patient and a localizer to receive signals from the tracker or transmit signals to the tracker. The navigation system includes a navigation processor that runs a plurality of software modules.
Claims18
A navigation system for use with a surgical manipulator operable in manual or semi-autonomous modes and an energy applicator coupled to the surgical manipulator to remove a volume of tissue from a patient, said navigation system comprising:
- a patient tracker for attaching to the patient;
- a localizer configured to receive signals from said patient tracker or transmit signals to said patient tracker to determine a position and orientation of said patient tracker;
- and
- at least one processor configured to determine a position of the energy applicator with respect to the volume of tissue to be removed based on the position and orientation of said patient tracker,
- said at least one processor further configured to run a removed material logger module to collect data relating to locations at which the energy applicator has been applied to the volume of tissue in the manual mode and locations at which the energy applicator has not been applied to the volume of tissue in the manual mode and to run a tool path generator module to generate a tool path for the energy applicator to traverse in the semi-autonomous mode, wherein said tool path generator module references said data collected by said removed material logger module so that said tool path generated by said tool path generator module accounts for tissue previously removed by the energy applicator in the manual mode by generating tool path segments along the locations at which the energy applicator has not been applied to the volume of tissue in order to avoid, in the semi-autonomous mode, an attempt to remove tissue previously removed by the energy applicator in the manual mode.
A method for removing a volume of tissue from a patient using a navigation system including a patient tracker and a localizer configured to receive signals from the patient tracker or transmit signals to the patient tracker, a surgical manipulator operable in manual or semi-autonomous modes, and an energy applicator coupled to the surgical manipulator, said method comprising the steps of:
- tracking a position of the energy applicator with respect to the volume of tissue to be removed as the surgical manipulator is operated in the manual mode;
- collecting data relating to locations at which the energy applicator has been applied to the volume of tissue in the manual mode and locations at which the energy applicator has not been applied to the volume of tissue in the manual mode;
- generating a tool path for the energy applicator to traverse in the semi-autonomous mode based on the data collected so that the tool path accounts for tissue previously removed by the energy applicator in the manual mode, wherein the tool path comprises tool path segments along the locations at which the energy applicator has not been applied to the volume of tissue in order to avoid, in the semi-autonomous mode, an attempt to remove tissue previously removed by the energy applicator in the manual mode;
- and
- controlling operation of the surgical manipulator to remove tissue with the energy applicator in the semi-autonomous mode by traversing the energy applicator along the tool path.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.