CARLO is a surgical robot designed by Swiss company Advanced Osteotomy Tools (AOT). It uses a revolutionary non-contact cold laser ablation procedure to cut and reshape bone in osteotomy surgery. This pioneering technique reduces the surgical workload, cuts the risk of infection, and makes possible new approaches to treatment, including the use of implants.

For the technique to succeed, AOT needed to teach its robo surgeon CARLO to 'see'. What's more, the firm wanted to gain FDA approval to market its device in the US. As such, the business required a partner that could combine strategy and regulatory experience with deep domain expertise and extensive capabilities in data engineering, machine learning, and software engineering.

Zühlke was the natural choice. Together, our teams and AOT developed a medical machine learning process. Building on this, we implemented and validated a legally compliant data platform for data collection and developing medical machine learning models.

Lastly, the team implemented an initial image recognition application, for which the new platform proved invaluable. This initial proof of concept involved enabling the robot to use optical coherence tomography to orient itself and precisely locate the bone and cutting sites – in other words, giving the surgical robot 'eyes'.
 

With our help, AOT secured a major milestone on the path towards commercialisation. The legally compliant data platform we developed paved the way for FDA approval and enabled the business to rapidly develop further medical software applications for a wide range of applications. In giving 'sight' to its pioneering robo surgeon, we demonstrated how the device could transform osteotomy and therapies, improving outcomes for AOT and patients alike.