Kinematic design of a hybrid planar-tripod mechanism for bone reduction surgery

In the most severe cases of longitudinal bone fractures such as femur, tibias, humerus etc., the bone can be completely separated into two fragments. In order to guarantee the re-ossification of the bone, it is required to reposition the bone fragments together. This process requires a delicate surgery called "bone reduction surgery". The most advanced technique relies on the use of a robotic manipulator to reposition the bone fragments with higher precision and stability than manual surgeries. The present work introduces the kinematic design of a new hybrid mechanical architecture to perform this task. It is composed of a 3-PRP planar mechanism attached with a 3-RPS tripod mechanism. The kinematic analysis of this mechanism is provided while taking account the tripod parasitic motion. Kinematic simulations using Matlab and Adams are performed to validate the kinematic and velocity models and the parasitic motion compensation provided by the planar mechanism. The workspace of this hybrid mechanism is then compared to the standard hexapod mechanism that is widely used in bone reduction surgery. It reveals that the proposed mechanism can generate a larger workspace with the same linkage dimensions.