English | Deutsch Motorists use GPS navigation devices to reach their destinations without driving off-course – but how do orthopedic surgeons find their way through the body when implanting an artificial hip or knee joint? Medical manufacturer Aesculap approached frog, determined to give surgeons a more accurate representation of their progress within a patient’s body, ensuring a new level of precision in the operating room.
frog’s design team conducted extensive research in area hospitals to determine an equipment structure that would enable easy adjustment and visibility, without getting in a doctor’s way.
The result, the OrthoPilot 2, is a positioning device for surgeons that uses optical, radio frequency, and ultrasound systems to facilitate millimeter-exact placement of joint implants inside the body. A modular form factor was chosen to minimize scale and enable customization for individual hospitals and patients, allowing surgeons to focus on the procedure, rather than the technology itself. A special 3D camera, information unit, and monitor provide the medical team with a highly accurate view of their every movement. Additional modules, such as active tracking, can be connected to an integrated BUS system – giving the surgeon greater flexibility in the operating room.
A flexible arm system makes it easy to handle both monitor and camera, and a foot pedal provides a secondary level of control, keeping the hands of the surgical staff free to operate. The OrthoPilot’s clear formal vocabulary serves one purpose above all: ergonomic perfection.
frog design spent a total of twenty-four months fine-tuning the design – from ergonomics and materials research to comprehensive user testing. Carefully-chosen manufacturing methods brought down production costs, and the new device was successfully launched into the market in April 2008.
The OrthoPilot 2 was awarded the coveted iF product design award on March 4, 2008 at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, and is expected to become a standard in orthopedic hospitals around the world.
