Jaw training robot that manipulates patient´s jaw to sideway

This paper describes the 6-degrees of freedom (6-DOF) jaw training robot that manipulates the patient´s jaw to move sideway. Patients with jaw disorders who can not only control the opening/closing of their jaws, but also sideway movements are the target of this research. The authors developed a 6-DOF slave manipulator and 3-DOF master manipulator for these patients. The natural jaw´s sideway motion was simulated by changing the center of rotation according to the rotational direction of the mandible. A real training for a jaw disorder patient using the robot was done, and the resulting distance to sideway was increased 9 to 15 mm in the right jaw joint and 7 to 12 mm in the left.