Page 28 - Demo

Chapter 226Subject of experiments and Technological Readiness Levels (TRL)The robots in the included articles interacted mostly with dental materials (33%) such as orthodontic wires or non-dental experimental models (29%, table 6). Interaction with humans was seen most frequently in the field of education (9 out of 11 articles) avoiding the need of physical contact of robots with their target audience. Only two articles concerning a master-slave system for the evaluation and training of the mouth opening and one case report on implantology robot Yomi had direct robot-to-patient interaction [35, 43, 44].Table 6. Subject of interactions with the robotObject of experiments Number of articles (%)Dental material§ orthodontic wires (18)§ resin teeth (6)§ dental impressions (6)30 (32%)Experimental model 27 (29%)Humans 12 (13%)Cadavers 11 (12%)Other 14 (15%)The mean level of technological readiness for all 94 studies was 4.3, median 3 (Table 7). Commercially available technology was found in the field or orthodontics (9), implantology (2), gnathology (1) and education of students (1). DiscussionSummary of the evidenceThe aim of this study was to provide dental practitioners and researchers with a comprehensive, transparent and evidence-based overview of the main characteristics of literature regarding physical robot initiatives in dentistry. Although a rising trend following the years of robotic developments for oral and maxillofacial, craniofacial, and head and neck surgery was found by De Ceulaer et al. 2012, this trend was not seen as strongly for robots in dentistry where the number of publications has stabilized to around 6 per year [109]. Tom van Riet.indd 26 26-10-2023 11:59