Medical applicability of a low-cost industrial robot arm guided with an optical tracking system

Robot systems used in surgical procedures can autonomously position tools at points correlated with preoperative imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance (MR) and computed tomography (CT). The aim of this paper is to measure and assess medical applicability of a low-cost, lightweight industrial robot arm (Universal robot UR5) guided with the medically certified optical tracking system (Polaris Vicra) to positions registered from a CT scan. Technical setup, measurement equipment, device communication and robot control based on OTS feedback are described. Robot intrinsic accuracy, CT scan accuracy and two methods of robot tool positioning with aid of the optical tracking system (OTS) are measured. Measurements show RMS error of the robot (0.669 mm) is decreased 55.4% when guided with OTS using a single marker probe (0.29 mm) and 40.5% when using OTS with relative referencing (0.39 mm). RMS error of the CT scan readings is 0.46 mm.