Dr. Scott Banks, an engineer at
The University of Florida has developed a robot that shoots xray videos of moving patients. This will allow doctors to view the bone structure of their patients as they move. This is especially important for persons with orthopedic injuries.
“Our goal is come up with a way to observe and measure how joints are
moving when people are actually using them,” Banks said. “We think this
will be tremendously powerful, not only for research but also in the
clinical setting as well.”
Currently, doctors have few options, involving static xrays and MRIs, and xray video machines with an extremely limited field of view. Dr. Banks' solution involves a robotic arm with a xray camera mounted on it. The patient wears a LED patch that is tracked by several cameras in the room. A controller then translates the location of the LED to motion commands for the robot arm.
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