A U.S.-based Nigerian scholar and control engineer, Mr Kenechukwu Nwajiaku, alongside his research team, has developed an intelligent robotic control system that bends and twists skeletal fixation plates to fit patients’ jaws or bones precisely.
Nwajiaku disclosed this in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday.
He said the innovation combined robotics, machine learning, and advanced control technology to shape patient-specific surgical plates accurately, potentially making reconstructive surgery easier and more precise.
The research team—comprising scholars from Case Western Reserve University and The Ohio State University—includes Nwajiaku, Ethan Regal, Tyler Babinec, Yi Jin, Brian Thurston, Glenn Daehn, Changyong Cao, David Dean, Kenneth Loparo, David Hoelzle, and Robert X. Gao.
“The system uses a Gaussian Process-Enhanced Model Predictive Control framework, known as GP-MPC, to predict how a fixation plate will respond while being bent and twisted.
