Design and Development of a Robot-Assisted In Situ Bioprinting System With Optical Tracking
Zitong Wang, Zhihong Cao, Shuoyu Ji, Liang Feng, Changru Zhang, Jinwu Wang
Abstract
Robot-assisted <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in situ</i> bioprinting offers a superior workspace-to-occupied-space ratio and enables direct deposition of bioink onto damaged tissues, surpassing the capabilities of traditional benchtop systems. However, most current platforms lack effective localization strategies to ensure accurate spatial correspondence between the end-effector and the anatomical target, often resulting in mismatches between the printed path and the actual defect. To overcome this limitation, optical tracking from computer-assisted surgery is introduced to enhance printing accuracy in <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in situ</i> bioprinting procedures. By collecting fiducial points with a probe tracked by an optical camera, the patient's anatomy can be registered to the point cloud of the virtual hand model, providing a spatial reference for precise toolpath generation. The system was validated through <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in situ</i> printing of two-layer grid scaffolds on a hand-defect phantom using a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm, demonstrating high geometric fidelity and positional accuracy. These results underscore its potential for tissue reconstruction and future clinical translation.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{ral2026_designanddevelop,
title = {Design and Development of a Robot-Assisted In Situ Bioprinting System With Optical Tracking},
author = {Zitong Wang and Zhihong Cao and Shuoyu Ji and Liang Feng and Changru Zhang and Jinwu Wang},
booktitle = {RA-L 2026},
year = {2026}
}