DESIGN, KINEMATICS AND MANIPULABILITY ANALYSES OF A SERIAL-LINK ROBOT FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE TREATMENT IN FEMORAL SHAFT FRACTURES

The application of robot in orthopedic clinical surgery is more and more accepted. A femoral fracture reduction robot is described in the paper. The mechanism of the manipulator comprises a six-DOF serial-link robot, referred to as a 3P3R robot, with three prismatic joints and three rotational joints (including one for the knee). The manipulability of the system was analyzed, and its operability over the entire whole work space was verified. In addition, the existence of an inverse kinematic solution of the system was established, and the same was analytically implemented with physical meaningfulness. The kinematic analysis and investigation of the workspace confirmed the feasibility of the mechanism for the given design parameters. The joint displacements and rotation angles required to achieve the desired posture of the end-effector of the mechanism were also determined. The results of simulation substantiated the effectiveness of the developed robotic system, and its prospect for practical application through further research.