Development of a Robot Manipulator Design for Brain Surgery

Abstract

Nowadays, most of the brain surgery operations are carried out by utilizing classical surgery methodologies and equipment. Although related literature includes studies on the robotization of brain surgery systems by the help of technological advancements, these applications mostly focused on the integration of robot manipulators that are designed for industrial automation into the medical area. Thus it can be clearly seen that, there exist lack of robot manipulators that are specifically designed for brain surgery applications, have necessary precision requirements and workspace constraints. In light of this, evaluating its preprototype performance, current study focuses on the improvement of a spherical parallel manipulator structure that was designed for positioning in robotic brain biopsy by taking operation efficiency, system reliability, workspace constraints and ease of manufacturing into consideration.