Constrained workspace generation for snake-like manipulators with applications to minimally invasive surgery

Osteolysis is a debilitating condition that can occur behind the acetabular component of total hip replacements due to wear of the polyethylene liner. Conventional treatment techniques suggest replacing the component, while less-invasive approaches attempt to access and clean the lesion through the screw holes in the component. However, current rigid tools have been shown to access at most 50% of the lesion. Using a recently developed dexterous manipulator, we have adapted a group-theoretic convolution framework to define the manipulator´s workspace and its ability to fully explore a lesion. We compared this with the experimental exploration of a printed model of the lesion. This convolution approach successfully contains the experimental results and shows over 98.8% volumetric coverage of a complex lesion. The results suggest this manipulator as a possible solution to accessing much of the area unreachable to the conventional less-invasive technique.