Tip Extension for Calibrating Irregular Handpiece Tips
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Solution Overview
Problem
Image-guided systems struggle to calibrate handpieces with irregularly shaped tips, such as those used for steam-based cavitation or ultrasonic bone cutting, as these tips cannot be precisely defined or aligned with the longitudinal axis of the handpiece, making traditional calibration methods impractical or impossible.
Innovation Solution
A tip extension with a round end and a neck is attached to the handpiece tip, allowing the round end to be calibrated using a calibration device, where the center remains stationary during rotation, enabling precise alignment and calibration even for handpieces with curved or irregular shapes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If traditional image-guided calibration methods are used on handpieces with irregular tips, then the calibration process becomes too difficult or impossible, but the precision of surgical navigation is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
A calibration adapter is introduced as an intermediary component between the irregular handpiece tip and the image-guided system. The adapter features a regular geometric structure (spherical, cylindrical, or conical) that can be precisely tracked by the navigation system, while its known geometric relationship to the handpiece tip allows indirect calibration of the irregular tip position through mathematical transformation.
2Measurement precision
If a calibration adapter with regular geometry is attached to an irregular handpiece tip, then calibration becomes feasible, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The calibration adapter is designed with universal features that can interface with multiple types of irregular handpiece tips while maintaining a consistent regular geometry for navigation tracking. This multi-functionality allows the same adapter design to work across different handpiece configurations, reducing the need for multiple specialized adapters and thereby limiting the increase in device complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
An apparatus for use with an image-guided system to calibrate a handpiece having a tip that is difficult to calibrate comprises a tip extension having an attachment end and a round end, the attachment end configured to fixedly attach to the tip of the handpiece. The attachment end may include a female component that mates with a correspondingly shaped male component of the tip of the handpiece. The tip extension may have a neck configured to allow rotation of the round end when the round end is in a round recess. A method of using an image-guided system to calibrate a handpiece having a tip may comprise fixedly attaching to the tip an attachment end of a tip extension, the tip extension also having a round end separate from the attachment end; and calibrating a center of the round end by contacting the round end to a calibration device.