218 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 2, NO.
4, DECEMBER 1997
A Hand-Held Drilling Tool for Orthopedic Surgery
Benedetto Allotta, Member, IEEE, Giuseppe Giacalone, and Luigi Rinaldi
Abstract—A novel hand-held drilling tool devoted to orthopedic
surgery is presented in this paper. The starting point of the study
is the conjecture that the invasiveness of interventions might be
reduced by adding sensing, reasoning, and control capabilities to
existing tools, in order to obtain controlled penetration in the
patient’s body and automatic discrimination among layers of dif-
ferent tissues. Due to the particular environment in which the tool
is to work, the requirements in terms of human friendliness and
safety impose a careful design of the human–machine interface.
The proposed approach to the development of a mechatronic tool
for surgery is discussed, with emphasis on the functionality and
performance of the device and the limited-usage expertise re-
quired. New applications for the proposed concepts in nonsurgical
environments requiring hand-held tools are foreseen.
Index Terms— Intelligent control, machine tool control, mate-
rial processing, orthopedics, surgery.
I. INTRODUCTION
O RTHOPEDIC surgery involves the use of motor-driven
tools held by the surgeon, such as drills and saws. The
use of drilling in orthopedics is required in about 95% of post-
trauma treatments (such as traction) and interventions. Holes
in bones are produced for the following reasons:
• mounting screws for anchor plates or exoskeleton devices
for the fixation of fractured bones [1];
• mounting screws for traction equipment.
An analysis aimed at assessing the size of the potential mar-
ket of new drilling tools in orthopedics has been performed.
The number of potential users in Europe is about 3000 (i.e.,
hospitals potentially interested in the results of the project).
In 1992, the total number of interventions executed in Italian
public hospitals was 388 578 and 62 783 in conventional pri-
vate hospitals operating with the National Health Service. The
magnitude of the potential market justified the development
of a new drilling tool aimed at improving the overall quality
of surgical interventions via the reduction of invasiveness
of drilling procedures. Drilling in the osteosynthesis of long
bones (DOLB), such as femur or tibia, has been chosen as a
Manuscript received March 1, 1997; revised September 4, 1997. Recom-
mended by Guest Editor H. Kobayashi. This work was supported in part by the
Commission of the European Communities, under a contract for the BRITE-
EURAM Project 7470, Mechatronic Innovative Tools for Surgery (MITOS),
and in part by S. M. Scienza Machinale.
B. Allotta is with the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, 56127 Pisa, Italy (e-
mail: ben@mousebuster.sssup.it).
G. Giacalone is with Microsoft Italy, 56125 Pisa, Italy (e-mail: gius-
giac@microsoft.com).
L. Rinaldi was with the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, 56127 Pisa, Italy.
He is now with OCEM, San Giorgio di Piano, Bologna, Italy (e-mail:
luigi@mousebuster.sssupit).
Publisher Item Identifier S 1083-4435(97)09026-1.
1083–4435/97$10.00  1997 IEEE
procedure for focused study, but the authors are confident that
the results of the study would be immediately useful for other
procedures involving drilling.
Several papers have addressed issues related to drilling
bones [2]–[5]. A recent study on a novel saw aimed at
improving the quality of resection surfaces was reported in
[6]. The performance of existing motor-driven drilling tools
is limited by the lack of any sensing means suitable for
recognizing the crossing of interfaces between hard and soft
tissues in both directions (hard to soft and soft to hard)
and, more generally, to discriminate among layers of different
tissues. A mechatronic drill for ear surgery was proposed in
[7]; the particular application requires that a tool support unit is
used to overcome the problem of tremor of the operator’s hand.
The use of force-sensing monitoring of the drilling process in
orthopedic procedures is discussed in [8]. Current drilling tools
used in orthopedics do not include any means for the control of
penetration, and only radiographic control and/or the surgeon’s
manual skill are used to stop the penetration of the drill when
a hole is completed according to the surgeon’s specification.
Consequently, X-rays are largely used to assist the surgeon
during drilling procedures; this significantly increases the
professional risk of the members of the medical staff. To obtain
the solutions to all of these problems, a hand-held drilling
tool for the DOLB procedure has been specified, designed,
and developed [see Fig. 1(b)], according to the concept tool
scheme shown in Fig. 1(a). The main tool feature is the
capability of early detection of interfaces between layers of
different bone tissues and automatic feed stop according to the
specification of the surgeon. An example of this concept is the
detection of a bone–flesh interface and consequent feed stop
when soft tissues surrounding the bone are encountered after
drilling the shaft of a long bone. An additional advantage of a
mechatronic approach to bone machining is the possibility to
accurately control the technological parameters involved in the
process in order to avoid undesired effects, such as bone cells
overheating. Patient and operating staff safety are safeguarded
by the new drill due to the following features:
• strong reduction in the use of the X-ray during the inter-
vention to monitor the tool position inside the patient’s
body;
• reduction in the damage of soft tissues surrounding the
bone;
• monitoring of the drilling procedure by means of sensors,
in order to supply the surgeon with all the relevant
information he/she may need (in particular, the cutting
parameters, including feed rate, current penetration depth
of the drill bit, and cutting speed).
ALLOTTA et al.: A HAND-HELD DRILLING TOOL FOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY
(a)
(b)
Fig. 1. The new drill. (a) Concept tool. (b) Embodiment.
The differences between existing drills and the new one are
of minor importance, so the layout of the operating theater
should be the same as in a generic orthopedic intervention
involving traditional tools. It is expected that automatic early
detection of incipient crossing and consequent action, such as
stop and/or autoreverse of feed direction and/or drill rotation
would improve the overall performance of the intervention.
This is due to the following.
• Where possible, the use of equipment for the protection of
soft tissues, such as Putti’s levers [1], could be avoided,
with lower damage to the anatomic parts surrounding the
bone.
• If the use of protection equipment is not possible, an
automatic stop of the drill feed, upon exiting the bone,
would reduce the threat of damage, especially when the
drilling is executed near blood vessels.
In this paper, we describe a mechatronic drill which fea-
tures the same functionality of state-of-the-art tools, but with
additional sensory motor capabilities aimed to complement the
surgeon’s skill, to reduce invasiveness of drilling procedures
219
in orthopedic surgery. The tool is proposed as an answer to the
following needs identified through interviews with surgeons:
• availability of a tool capable of drilling and automatically
stopping the feed when it crosses a bone/soft tissue
interface and when a dangerous situation is detected (soft
stop);
• possibility of fail-safe turning off the power (hard stop by
“red button”) in case of failure of the tool control;
• strong necessity to protect surgeons and all the operating
staff from the X-rays largely utilized during the interven-
tion, to control the surgeon operations inside the working
site;
• user-friendly interface.
The techniques, as well as the hardware design of the tool,
are adequate in applications in different fields, such as home
and industrial hand-held drills [13].
In Section II, the model used for the drilling process
and its experimental validation in the case of bone drilling
are presented. In this section, the issue of choosing suitable
parameters to be sensed for the purpose of detecting interfaces
220 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 1997

(a)

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the drill bit penetration.

is discussed. Section III shows some details of the penetration

fuzzy controller devised. Section IV describes the hardware
and software components of the designed prototype. The
results of the study are summarized in Section V.

II. DRILLING PROCESS MODELING

A. Theoretical Model
The interaction between drilling tool and bone tissue has
been modeled by means of the theory available for machining
by means of twisted drill bits. The model adopted allows
one to calculate the amount of thrust force required to drill
a hole in a work piece and the profiles of thrust force and
cutting torque at breakthroughs. The aim of the model was
to derive techniques able to detect tool breakthroughs at
cortical/trabecular bone interfaces, as well as bone/soft tissue
interfaces, by means of force/torque measurements. In an
approximate model neglecting chisel effects, the thrust force
exerted by the drill bit upon a bulk testpiece is given by
(1)
where is the total energy per unit volume required to cut
the material (ripping load), is the feed rate expressed in unit
length/revolution, is the diameter of the drill bit, and is
the convex angle between the main cutting lips.
The feed rate can be expressed as a function of the rotational
speed of the drill bit and the penetration velocity as
follows:
(2)
(b)
Fig. 3. (a) Definition of a layer of thickness dx. (b) Drilling through two
different materials.
test piece with ripping load variable along the penetration
direction, and including, as a particular case, drilling across
a border surface of the test piece, let us introduce a reference
frame fixed to the drill bit, as shown in Fig. 2. Referring
to Fig. 3(a), the contributions of a layer of thickness and
ripping load to the thrust force and the cutting torque
are
(4)
(5)
Referring to the case depicted in Fig. 3(b), the resulting
thrust force and axial torque exerted by the drill bit on the
workpiece can be evaluated by integration of (4) and (5):

Referring to Fig. 2(a), from simple geometric reasoning, (1)

can be rewritten as

(3)

where is the length of the drill bit cone [see Fig. 2(a)]. (6)
In order to describe the more general case of drilling in a
ALLOTTA et al.: A HAND-HELD DRILLING TOOL FOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. Time-dependent functions representing cutting force and torque at
breakthrough upon completing a hole.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 5. Time-dependent functions representing cutting force and torque at
a breakthrough between two different materials. (a) Theoretical thrust force
profile at breakthrough. (b) Theoretical cutting profile at breakthrough.
(7)
where is the current abscissa of the interface between the
two layers, expressed in the reference frame defined above,
and , are the values of the ripping load in the two
materials (see Fig. 3). An interesting case is the breakthrough
221
upon completion of a hole. In this case, assuming a constant
penetration velocity (and, hence, feed rate), the profiles of
and as functions of time are those shown in Fig. 4.
Both force and torque are monotone decreasing time functions,
falling from the stationary drilling values to zero; the force
pattern is linear, the torque pattern is parabolic. The torque
and force profiles in the case of drilling through an interface
between a soft material and a hard one are shown in Fig. 5.
In principle, both and could be used as device
detection techniques for breakthroughs and controlling the
penetration. However, the practical implementation of sensing
means may affect selectively the quality of measurements.
The drilling experiments described in Section II-B have been
performed to validate the model discussed in this section and to
assess the quality of force/torque measurements in a realistic
configuration.
B. Validation of the Theoretical Model
In parallel to the theoretical work, drilling experiments
have been designed and performed. Swine femurs have been
selected as test pieces for the similarity of their physical
properties to those of human bones; in fact, real human bones
could not be used in the experiments, due to the practical
impossibility of finding fresh specimens. A first set of exper-
iments was performed to characterize the force experienced
by a drilling tool progressing through the interface hard/soft
tissue of a real long bone. The experimental setup, shown in
Fig. 6, was made up of an Instron Testing Machine equipped
with a 1 to 1-kN range load cell and a dc-motor-powered
drill with velocity control mounted on the mobile part of the
testing machine. The experimental apparatus was interfaced
via a IEEE-488 to a PC for data recording and processing.
The drill bits used in the experiments are commercially
available bits with 120 point angle and about 25 helix
angle. The test pieces have been fixed to a platform fitted
with clamps mounted on the load cell. The bones have been
drilled in the midshaft region, where their diameter was about
30 mm. Several values of the drill bit feed rate (25, 50, 75,
100, and 125 mm/min) and rotational speed (1000, 1500,
1800, and 2000 r/min) have been used. According to the
theoretical model described in the previous section, output
data have shown the dependence of axial force and torque
from the cutting parameters. This is due to the fact that the
axial stiffness of the drill is much higher in comparison to the
torsional stiffness. This means that thrust force transmission
from the drill bit to the sensor is much more direct than torque
transmission (which is affected from unmodeled dynamics),
and the result is that torsional vibrations make the torque
measurements less reliable, as shown in Fig. 7. As seen in
Fig. 8, there is a good agreement between theoretical and
experimental force data. For this reason, thrust force has
been elected as the preferred parameter to be taken into
account for devising penetration control techniques. Notice
how the choice of thrust force instead of torque is justified
by a theoretical consideration, in that thrust force exhibits
easily detectable sharp corners at interfaces and a practical
consideration related to the implementation of the sensing
apparatus, i.e., the location of sensors, which is remote with
222
Fig. 6. Experimental setup.
respect to the cutting zone, resulting in a better quality of thrust
force measurements with respect to cutting torque ones.
III. THE CONTROL OF PENETRATION
The goal of the techniques to be devised is to identify
the time of incipient breakthrough at tissue interfaces and
to control the penetration velocity in order to complete the
hole with minimal protrusion beyond the interface. Several
methods for the control of penetration, based either on Boolean
or fuzzy reasoning, have been implemented and compared (see
[11]). Simulations using experimental data and experimental
trials with the drill prototype described in this paper have
demonstrated a fully satisfactory performance of a fuzzy logic
controller described below.
The basic idea of fuzzy logic, first introduced by Zadeh [9],
is the association of a truth value to an expression, contrary
to the standard logic in which any proposition can only be
true or false. Currently, fuzzy controllers are widely used in
industrial applications, such as automotive, home appliances,
robotics, power electronics, etc.
In the current implementation, the controller may fulfill the
following three tasks, corresponding to a different specification
of the hole to be made, as shown in Fig. 9:
• feed stop as the first cortical wall is cut;
• feed stop just before the second cortical wall;
• feed stop as soon as both cortical walls are cut.
IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 1997
The feed controller, schematically shown in Fig. 13, has
three inputs and one output. The inputs are two “state vari-
ables” and and one external variable . The output is
the feed rate, normalized with respect to the nominal one,
established by the surgeon.
The two variables and take into account whether two
key events have occurred or not. Initially, and will be set
to zero. Ideally, will assume the value 1 after the cutting of
the first cortical wall, while will assume the value 1 after the
beginning of the second cortical wall. The typical pattern of
and in a complete drilling simulation is shown in Fig. 10.
The variable is closely related to the current value of the
experienced cutting force and its expression is the following:
(8)
where the numerator can be calculated from (3) based on
the knowledge of the current feed rate and the geometry
of the drill, and is the maximum value of .
Note that no a priori knowledge or on-line estimation of
is required to calculate ; is simply given by the ratio of
and . Notice that the value of is
continuously updated as the penetration proceeds. The value
of is not greater than 1; increases near the cortical walls
and decreases inside the bone.
ALLOTTA et al.: A HAND-HELD DRILLING TOOL FOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY 223

(a)
Fig. 8. Theoretical and experimental thrust force profiles at breakthrough.
Comparison between theoretical and experimental force profiles when drilling
with constant feed rate; the * line corresponds to theoretical data, while the
continuous lines corresponds to a set of experimental data.

Fig. 9. The three tasks fulfilled by the feed controller.

(b)
Fig. 7. Plot of (a) thrust force and (b) cutting torque for a drilling trial on
fresh swine femur using a cutting speed of 2000 r/min and a constant feed
rate of 75 mm/min. No penetration control is used in this experiment.

The controller has to be properly initialized. At startup, the

drill bit will not be in contact with the bone, and the variables
and will be both set to zero. At this time, the controller
will be put in an idle condition. Upon the consensus from
the surgeon, the feed rate will be set to the nominal value
chosen by the surgeon, the drill bit will begin to advance,
and the controller will be triggered as soon as the drill bit
comes in contact with the bone and the sensed force exceeds
a predefined threshold. The threshold is chosen in order to
avoid undesired triggering of the controller due to the ripple
in the force signal.
The fuzzy rules involved are different with regard to the
problem to be solved; we are interested in the three possibil- Fig. 10. Pattern of Ft , s1 , and s2 versus penetration.

ities previously mentioned, i.e., cutting the first cortical wall,

stopping as soon as the second cortical wall is encountered, and
cutting both cortical walls. The flow diagrams corresponding
to the three cases are shown in Fig. 11. The membership
functions of and of the state variables with respect to any
fuzzy subset are plotted in Fig. 12. In other words, the dotted
line, continuous line, and dash–dot line graphs, represent,
respectively, the membership functions of with respect to
fuzzy subsets labeled small, medium, and great; the line
marked by and the dashed line are the membership functions
of the state variables with respect to fuzzy subsets labeled true
and false.
224 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 1997

Fig. 11. Flow diagrams of the control strategy in the three different cases.

IV. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

A. System Overview
The mechatronic drill system (schematically depicted in
Fig. 14) consists of the following basic components: the drill
unit, the electronic power controller, the computer, and the
pedal switch. The whole system is controlled by real-time
control software running on the PC, the inputs of which are
the following:
• the force applied to the drill bit, measured in the range
0–60 N;
• the pedal state changes;
• the hole-type setup.
The outputs generated are as follows:
• the feed speed, typically varying between 0–2 mm/s;
• the feed position in a range between 0 (before drilling)–60
mm (maximum penetration). Fig. 12. Patterns of the membership functions for i (top) and the state
The system high-level control loop is an autonomous thread variables s1 , s2 (bottom) used by the controller.
of the real-time software controller; it is executed on the main limit the noise of connection cables, the filter is integrated in
CPU (an Intel Pentium) of the PC and runs at 50 Hz. The the drilling tool.
two low-level control loops, one for the feed servo and the The feed motion group includes a dc coreless motor with
second for controlling the chuck angular velocity, are executed encoder feedback and gearing which drives, via a lead screw,
directly on the digital signal processor (DSP) motion controller a ferrule [visible in Fig. 1(b)] that allows one to measure and
board at approximately a 2-kHz rate. control the penetration. Let be the force exerted by the
operator on the tool; therefore, it holds that
B. Hardware and Firmware
(9)
1) Tool Unit: The mechanical assembly of the tool includes
a cutting motion group and a feed motion group supported by where is the drill thrust force previously defined and is
a rigid frame and shielded by a fiberglass shell. the force exerted by the ferrule on the working piece. Equation
The cutting motion group includes a dc coreless motor with (9) explains why, due to the stiffness of the feed motion
appropriate gearing to drive the chuck shaft. The chuck shaft group, no matter how much the surgeon pushes on the tool,
transmits the thrust to a force sensor made by a steel cantilever the penetration of the drill bit in the material proceeds with the
spring the deformation of which is measured by means of a feed rate set by the fuzzy controller, unless the force exerted by
Wheatstone’s bridge of foil extensimetric resistors. An analog the surgeon is smaller than the amount required by the current
anti-aliasing filter is used for signal conditioning. In order to values of the technological parameters and the strength of the
ALLOTTA et al.: A HAND-HELD DRILLING TOOL FOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY
Fig. 13. Block diagram of the feed controller.
Fig. 14. System setup in the operating theater.
material. In this case, , , and, hence, the feed
rate is set by the operator and not by the controller. It follows
that the only requirement for the penetration controller to work
correctly is that the operator “pushes enough” on the tool.
2) Low-Level Control System: An axis controller with a
DSP on board is used for interfacing the high-level control
with the electromechanical hardware. The DSP runs the digital
PID filters at a sampling rate of 2 kHz. Analog inputs are used
for acquisition of various parameters, including thrust force.
The dc motors for the feed and cutting motion are driven
by pulsewidth modulated (PWM) servo amplifiers. The motor
actuating the feed motion is position controlled, while the
225
motor actuating the cutting motion is velocity controlled by
means of voltage and current feedback.
C. Software Architecture
For the implementation of the system management soft-
ware, a distributed architecture has been chosen. This solution
permits the adoption of different hardware configurations in
future releases of the system. The software is composed of
two separates modules executed as two concurrent processes,
as shown in Fig. 15:
226 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 1997
Fig. 15. High-level software architecture.
• high-level real-time controller (HLC);
• graphic user interface (GUI).
Communication between the processes is performed by means
of a standard transfer protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP)
socket. In this way, it is possible to execute the user interface
process in a remote workstation, while the real-time controller
may run in a more specialized computing unit installed close
to or embedded in the drilling tool.
The first module (HLC), performs the main control algo-
rithms, interfaces the low-level control system, and offers a
set of services to interact with the tool; it is constituted by
three cooperating threads running at high priority, as shown
in Fig. 15.
1) Drilling Process Manager (DPM): The DPM acquires
thrust force data, pedal state changes, and controls the pen-
etration velocity, according to the selected modality, using the
fuzzy algorithm described in Section III. The structure of the
DPM is shown in Fig. 16.
The thrust force data, processed by an infinite impulse
response (IIR) low-pass filter block, are sent to the fuzzy block.
Filtered thrust force is also an input of state transition rules.
Rounded rectangles represent the states of the DPM. The prin-
cipal state is the drilling state, expanded in Fig. 16 to show its
internal structure. The bordered rectangles represent instances
of the C++ classes designed for process control. Some of these
classes (filter block, T-delay block) are exclusively software,
while others are interfaces to hardware devices.
2) Communication Manager: The Communication Man-
ager supports the data exchange between the HLC and GUI.
For this purpose, a simple messaging protocol has been
developed which is used by the HLC to send real-time data,
such as system state and force/position coordinates, to the GUI
and to receive configuration data. The protocol is implemented
using standard TCP/IP system calls, following a client–server
model, in which the Communication Manager represents the
server and the GUI represents the client. The same channel is
used to transmit asyncronous error messages codes generated
by the Failure Monitor (watchdog) thread.
3) Failure Monitor and Emergency Recovery: The Failure
Monitor and Emergency Recovery thread performs periodic
checks over the system. In case of failure detection, spe-
cial recovery procedures are invoked to manage the error
condition. According to the error gravity, different actions
are performed to ignore the error, automatically solve the
problem (i.e., recalibration), or block the system. In every
case, message codes are sent through services provided by
the Communication Manager and properly displayed in the
main GUI window.
4) Software and Development Tools: The system has been
designed following an object-oriented approach. The whole
HLC has been developed using Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 and
the chosen operating system is Microsoft Windows NT 3.51.
The low-level control is achieved by using the motion control
library provided with the axis control board [12].
D. Human–Machine Interface
Care has been devoted to the human–machine interface
because the tool is to operate in a difficult environment where
aspects such as user friendliness and safety are of primary im-
portance. In the current embodiment, two different interfaces
are available. The first interface is dedicated to the surgeon,
while the second is dedicated to another person assisting the
surgeon in this experimentation phase (see Fig. 14).
1) Assistant Interface: The assistant–machine interface in-
cludes an emergency button, a keyboard, and a mouse. The
graphic display, which is also a part of the surgeon interface,
is visible to the assistant. The graphic interface allows the
assistant to interact with the tool, so that it is possible, by
means of a keyboard and a mouse, to perform the following:
• enter patient data;
• choose a drill bit;
• choose different drilling procedures.
A graph representing the thrust force versus the penetration
depth is displayed in the main GUI window (see Fig. 17)
during the drilling phase. Such information is useful in show-
ing the instantaneous position of the drill bit with respect
to the bone surface (currently determined using X-rays) and
the force, which give qualitative information about the bone
strength. At the end of the operation, the whole “drilling
session record” is saved in a database, the contents of which
may be used for statistical/filing purposes.
2) Surgeon Interface: The surgeon–machine interface con-
sists of a pedal button that allows the control of any tool
function and a graphic display showing the main GUI window
updated in real time. Fig. 18 shows an oriented graph repre-
senting the system states and the possible transitions between
them. The nine state transitions are classified as user driven
or controller driven. All of the user-driven transitions are
performed by pressing the pedal switch. The controller-driven
transitions are performed by the following particular events:
• touch transition, generated when the drill bit reaches the
bone surface;
• drilling stop, performed by the fuzzy algorithm;
• home position reached, generated when the pipe returns
to the initial position.
The working principle is easy to understand and learn for
the surgeon.
ALLOTTA et al.: A HAND-HELD DRILLING TOOL FOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY
Fig. 16. DPM architecture.
Fig. 17. Graphical user interface, main window.
V. RESULTS
The results of the study can be summarized as follows.
• Effectiveness of penetration control—The maximum pro-
trusion of the drill bit is well below the specified limits
in all three operating modes; thus, a great improvement
has been obtained in comparison to existing drills.
227
• Friendliness—Since the surgeon interacts with the tool
exclusively by the foot switch he/she must concentrate
only on positioning the drill bit, maintaining the correct
orientation, and exerting a sufficient amount of thrust
force. Some failures have been observed when the sur-
geon does not exert a sufficient amount of thrust force on
the drilling tool; for this reason, a short training course
228 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 1997
Fig. 18. State transition diagram of the controller.
for inexperienced operators is required before using the
tool for the first time.
• Patient safety—The system is intrinsically safe because
the drilling tool is handled directly by the surgeon, who
can interrupt the operation at any time. Moreover, in case
of failure, either the surgeon or the assistant can stop the
tool by means of emergency button. In the worst case,
the tool behaves like a traditional one with no automatic
penetration control capability, so the surgeon is solely
responsible for the procedure.
• Medical staff safety—The system gives information in
real time regarding the drill bit position inside the bone
by means of a graphical interface, without the need of
stopping the procedure and without using X-rays. This
significantly reduces the risk to the members of the
medical staff.
• Modularity of control software—The control software
(with the exclusion of the motion control function) has
been realized in C++ language using a library of pur-
posely written real-time classes, where each class exe-
cutes a particular control function. In fact, each class
might be considered as a hardware block and the main
code as the link of these blocks. The core of the control
algorithm is also seen as a block that might be changed
if a better algorithm is available. In this manner, the
control software is manageable and its updating is very
easy.
VI. CONCLUSION
Drilling procedures used in orthopedic surgery have been
reviewed, and drilling in long bones has been selected as
a suitable procedure for a focused study on a mechatronic
tool. Surgical needs for such an automatic drill have been
formalized in collaboration with surgeons.
A theoretical and laboratory study has been performed to
obtain a reliable model for the drilling process in layers
of different materials. Force sensing has been elected as
the appropriate way to devise a penetration controller. The
model has been used to devise force-based penetration control
techniques using fuzzy reasoning.
The sensing and control capabilities described in this paper
have been integrated into a new tool [13] that has been
successfully tested in experimental in vitro trials performed
by surgeons.
Particular care has been devoted to safety and user friend-
liness in the design of the tool prototype.
REFERENCES
[1] M. E. Müller, M. Allgöwer, R. Schneider, and H. Willenegger, Manual
of Internal Fixation: Techniques Recommended by the AO-ASIF Group,
3rd ed. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 1991.
[2] S. Saha, S. Pal, and J. A. Albright, “Surgical drilling: Design and
performance of an improved drill,” J. Biomech. Eng., vol. 104, pp.
245–252, Aug. 1982.
[3] K. L. Wiggins and S. Malkins, “Orthogonal machining of bone,” J.
Biomech. Eng., vol. 100, pp. 122–130, Aug. 1978.
[4] , “Drilling of bone,” J. Biomechanics, vol. 9, pp. 553–559, 1976.
[5] C. H. Jacob, J. T. Berry, M. H. Pope, and F. T. Hoaglund, “A study
of the bone machining process–drilling,” J. Biomechanics, vol. 9, pp.
343–349, 1976.
[6] J. L. Moctezuma and D. Schuster, “A new surgery tool for robotic
aided treatment delivery,” in Proc. 2nd Int. Workshop Mechatronics in
Medicine and Surgery (MEDIMEC’95), Bristol, U.K., Sept. 6–9, 1995,
pp. 35–46.
[7] D. Baker, P. N. Brett, M. V. Griffiths, and L. Reyes, “A mechatronic
drilling tool for ear surgery: A case study and some design characteris-
tics,” Mechatronics—Int. J., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 461–477, June 1996.
[8] K. Bouazza-Marouf, I. Browbank, and J. R. Hewitt, “Robot-assisted
invasive orthopedic surgery,” Mechatronics—Int. J., vol. 6, no. 3, pp.
381–397, June 1996.
[9] L. A. Zadeh, “Fuzzy sets,” Inform. Contr., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 338–352,
June 1965.
[10] B. Allotta, F. Belmonte, L. Bosio, and P. Dario, “Study on a mecha-
tronic tool for drilling in the osteosynthesis of long bones: Tool/bone
interaction modeling and experiments,” Mechatronics—Int. J., vol. 6,
no. 3, pp. 447–459, June 1996.
[11] B. Allotta, F. Belmonte, P. Dario, and L. Rinaldi, “The control of
penetration in a mechatronic drill for orthopedic surgery,” in Proc.
Multiconf. Computational Engineering in Systems Applications—Symp.
Robotics and Cybernetics, Lille, France, July 9–12, 1996, pp. 222–227.
[12] DSP-Series Motion Controller–C Programming, version 2.4E, Motion
Engineering, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, Apr. 1995.
[13] B. Allotta, “Trapano manuale ad uso ortopedico con controllo di
avanzamento e sfondamento incipiente,” Italian Patent PI/96/A/000050,
1996.
Benedetto Allotta (S’90–M’92) was born in
Agrigento, Italy, in 1963. He received the Laurea
degree in mechanical engineering in 1987 and the
Ph.D. degree in robotics in 1992 from the University
of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
In 1988, he joined the Scuola Superiore
Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy, as a Research Assistant.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of Applied
Mechanics, teaching motion control. He also
teaches mechatronics at the School of Engineering,
University of Pisa. His research interests are in the
areas of mechanical design of robot manipulators, sensor-based robot control,
mechatronics, computer-aided surgery, and force reflection in virtual reality
and teleoperation.
ALLOTTA et al.: A HAND-HELD DRILLING TOOL FOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY
Giuseppe Giacalone was born in Trapani, Italy, in
1964. He received the Laurea degree in electronic
engineering in 1991 from the University of Pisa,
Pisa, Italy.
Since 1988, he has worked for a number of
software companies in Italy and has collaborated
with the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy,
on various research projects. He is currently a
System Engineer with Microsoft Italy, Milan, Italy.
His research interests are in the fields of real-
time systems, object-oriented methodologies and
software tools, advanced man–machine interfaces, and mechatronics.
229
Luigi Rinaldi was born in Sassari, Italy, in 1967. He
received the Laurea degree in electronic engineering
in 1996 from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Following graduation, he was with the Scuola
Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy, as a Contract Re-
searcher until December 1996. He is currently a
Software Engineer with OCEM, San Giorgio di
Piano, Bologna, Italy.