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3Robot Technology in dentistry, an overview of initiatives45artificial teeth into a dental arch to manufacture complete dentures based upon the patient’s arch size. Limited experiments in a laboratory setting were performed. To the authors best of knowledge no clinical studies to evaluate the functional or esthetic outcomes were undertaken. Another research group more recently reported the design and test results of an ‘intelligent dental robot’ for the purpose of testing full dentures [63]. Its goal was to replicate human’s masticatory movements and perform stress and wear test on artificial dentures. Experiments were performed in a laboratory setting. Restorative dentistryRobotics in the field of restorative dentistry is relatively new with all included articles published after 2013 (Fig. 3). All articles were categorized into basic applied research, and experiments were mostly conducted on cadavers. Eight out of the nine articles originated from China. In a series of eight articles, a research group from Beijing reported the development of an automatic full-crown tooth preparation robot using ultrashort pulse lasers. [6, 64-70] The most recent version of the robot consisted of computer-aided design and manufacturing system (CAD/CAM), a tooth positioning system and a 6-DoF robotic arm controlling the position of a laser system [6]. Preparation of a full-crown was done with layer-by-layer laser ablation of the tooth and experiments took place on extracted human teeth inside a phantom model to show its clinical potential. Another group also evaluated an automated tooth preparation system but used a high-speed handpiece attached to the robot instead of a laser [71]. The reduction for porcelain laminate veneers with a robot were compared to conventional freehand preparation. Experiments took place in a laboratory setting. 012345678910198519861987198819891990199119921993199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020Number of articlesYear of publicationEndodonticsProsthodonticsOrthodonticsImplantologyEducation ofstudentsGeneral practiceDental radiologyEducation ofpatientsGnathologyRestorativedentistryFigure 3. Included articles per field of dentistry and their respective year of publicationTom van Riet.indd 45 26-10-2023 11:59