Handheld surgical drill with integrated thrust force recognition

Spine surgeries are particularly high-risk procedures with the imminent danger of spinal cord and blood vessel injuries. High accuracy and safety are important aspects in the use of medical devices during invasive interventions. For exact positioning of the drill hole, drill tip pose recognition and bone layer breakthrough detection is required. This paper presents a concept design and first results of a novel navigated handheld surgical device for bone drilling with integrated thrust force sensing and active optical markers for real-time pose recognition. The developed force sensor measures the applied thrust force on the drill tip with a cylindrical deformation element, integrated between the axial bearing of the shaft and the casing. The deflection of the deformation element is acquired by bonded resistive strain gauges. First experiments show sufficient results of the thrust force resolution for breakthrough detection.