Dento-Munch
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Prototyping a Robotic Dental Testing Simulator
| Sponsor : |
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EPSRC/Department |
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| Reference : |
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DTG SB 1604 |
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| Funding : |
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£75000 |
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| Start : |
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01/10/2006 |
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| End : |
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30/09/2009 |
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Collaboration
Bristol
Summary
Despite the frequent use of metals, polymers and ceramics for tooth restoration, properties such as modulus of elasticity, flexural strength, hardness, wear and fatigue are often poorly understood. Without this knowledge the likely long term performance of the materials cannot be judged. In spite of the UK spending #2.5 billion each year on dental materials to replace or strengthen teeth, lack of an adequate method of field testing is hindering dental development with randomised clinical trial being time-consuming and expensive, and by the time a new material has been evaluated the market has often moved on. Current laboratory simulators utilise only 2-3 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) and are unable to reflect true clinical performance, with results from different simulators are often inconsistent.
Together with the University of Bristol Dental Hospital, we are developing a 6-DOF robotic testing simulator called 'Dento-Munch' to emulate the human neuromasticatory system, which via feedback control of the robot actuators, will accurately replicate the forces and dynamics sustained by the teeth in-situ.
The potential health care befits and merits of the Bristol dental robotic simulator have already been published in the New Scientist (twice recently, 28 June 2007 and 3 January 2008; Breaking News), Medical Engineering Journal (Alemzadeh et al., 2007), at the 5th World Congress of Biomechanics (Alemzadeh, 2006) and in the Proceedings of the 29th IEEE EMBS (Alemzadeh and Raabe, 2007).