Robot for placement of spinal instrumentation

1. A robot for use in a spinal surgery, the robot comprising:

an open rectangular base comprising at least three sides of which the longest side is configured to slide on a rail of a fixed support;

a moving top platform comprising a portion of a circle having two ends, a cross bar connecting the two ends, and a guide attached to the cross bar and configured to attach a surgical instrument thereon; and

three legs configured to support the top platform on the base and move the top platform in 6-degree-of-freedom relative to the base;

wherein:

each of the three legs comprises a lower part and an upper part rotatably joined by an electric linear actuator, the linear actuator being configured to slide the upper part linearly relative to the lower part,

the lower part of each leg is joined to a shaft of a rotary actuator through a passive resolute joint, wherein the rotary actuator is mounted on the base at a fixed point and the shaft of the rotatory is configured to rotate relative to the base, and

the upper part of each leg is joined to the top platform at a fixed point via a passive spherical joint.

2. The robot of claim 1 , wherein the guide of the top platform is a hollow cylinder.

3. The robot of claim 1 , wherein the three rotary actuators are equally spaced with respect to each other.

4. The robot of claim 1 , wherein the three passive spherical joints are equally spaced with respect to each other.

5. The robot of claim 1 , wherein the base is movably mounted to the rail of a tracking system and configured to slide longitudinally or laterally relative to the tracking system.

6. The robot of claim 1 , wherein the base comprises a housing for an imaging probe wherein the housing is configured to slide longitudinally or laterally relative to the base.

7. The robot of claim 6 , wherein the imaging probe is an ultrasound probe.

8. The robot of claim 1 , wherein each of the rotary actuators is configured to rotate using servo or stepper motor.

9. The robot of claim 1 , wherein each of the rotary actuators comprises a needle roller bearing.

10. A method for controlling a robot according to claim 1 for use in a spinal surgery, comprising the steps of:

receiving, using a microcontroller, a trajectory position instruction;

generating, using a microcontroller, one or more control parameters for each of the three rotary actuators and three linear actuators based on the position instruction;

operating, using a microcontroller, at least one of the three rotary actuators and three linear actuators based on at least one or the one or more control parameters.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the robot is communicatively coupled to a master robot, and wherein the method further comprises receiving, using a microcontroller, one or more position instructions from the master robot.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein receiving the position instruction comprises receiving, via a microprocessor, a user command via a graphical user interface.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the robot is communicatively coupled to a joystick device, and wherein receiving the position instruction comprises receiving, via a microprocessor, a position instruction via the joystick device.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein receiving the position instruction comprises receiving, via a microprocessor, a position instruction via a path planning.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the path planning is developed in a preoperative planning process.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein generating the set of control parameters for actuators comprises adjusting, by a microprocessor, the position based on a force or position feedback.