Accurate Robotic Posterior Capsule Polishing With Tissue Stabilization

Within cataract surgery, posterior capsule (PC) polishing is a specific procedure that has demonstrated value toward improving surgical outcomes, yet is not commonly performed by surgeons due to the risk of doing so. In this work, a robotic system is used to perform the polishing procedure through three main contributions: external stabilization of the eye using a dedicated docking device, regulating intraocular pressure through feedback control, and improving the robot-tracking performance to result in an accurate polishing procedure. To validate the methodology, polishing was performed on four ex vivo pig eyes by mimicking the residual lens on the PC with an evenly distributed layer of glue. Fast and accurate polishing results were achieved and complete glue removal was accomplished in all experiments without any PC rupture or other surgical complications.