Influence of bone milling parameters on the temperature rise, milling forces and surface flatness in view of robot-assisted total knee arthroplasty

The authors have developed a robot-assisted procedure to prepare the tibial surface in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Using hybrid force/velocity control, the surgeon machines the bone by means of an end mill attached to the robot-arm. The milling forces can give information on the local bone quality intra-operatively. This paper describes experiments on human tibial bone to analyse the influence of the feed rate and the milling speed on the temperature rise, the milling forces and the surface flatness.