SGER: Computer Aided Robotic Burn Debridement

小行星9628840 这个探索性研究奖的小额赠款调查了制造自动化中使用的技术可以用于健康领域的方式，特别是在烧伤的治疗中。 烧伤清创术是去除烧伤受损皮肤以确定烧伤深度和存活皮肤组织的存在的过程。 今天，外科医生使用激光通过汽化烧伤组织来完成这项任务。 这对于外科医生来说是一项乏味的任务，并且对于已经虚弱的患者来说是危险的，因为难以控制激光的穿透深度。 该奖项将调查在制造中使用的技术集成，以执行烧伤清创任务。 该技术方法使用结构光扫描来构建治疗区域的非均匀有理B样条（NURBS）模型，NASA开发了用于烧伤深度传感的传感技术，以及数控（NC）编程来引导安装在机器人末端执行器上的手术激光器。 这项研究的高风险、高回报方面是能够使用扫描数据的技术挑战，即使有外科医生的互动，以确定所需的治疗和激光能量水平，一旦确定，如果患者移动，确保恒定的间隔距离，然而，回报是更快和创伤更小的伤口准备。 这也为制造自动化设备和系统的设计师和集成商提供了新的机会。

9628840 Nnaji This Small Grant for Exploratory Research award investigates ways that technologies used in manufacturing automation can be used in health fields, specifically in the treatment of burns. Burn debridement is the process where burn damaged skin is removed to determine the depth of a burn and the presence of viable skin tissue. Today a surgeon uses lasers to perform this task by vaporizing burned tissue. This is a tedious task for the surgeon and dangerous for an already weakened patient because of the difficulty in controlling the depth of penetration of the laser. This award will investigate the integration of technologies used in manufacturing to perform the burn debridement task. The technical approach uses structured light scanning to construct a Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) model of the treatment area, NASA developed sensing technology for burn depth sensing, and Numerical Control (NC) programming to guide the surgical laser mounted on a robotic end effector. The high risk, high payoff aspects of this research are the technical challenge of being able to use the scan data, even with a surgeon's interaction, to determine the required treatment and laser energy levels, and once that is determined assure a constant stand off distance if the patient moves, however, the payoff is faster and less traumatic wound preparation. This also presents a new opportunity for designers and integrators of manufacturing automation equipment and systems.