Abstract
This paper includes two topics, a newly designed mastication robot mechanism using a human skull model and reduction of the temporomandibular joint force (TMJF) focused on the fan shape of the M.temporalis. Although the authors designed former mechanisms of the mastication robots based on simple geometrical planes because these robots consist of the dental model and the duralumin mandible, actual human mandible has complicated 3D shape. Therefore the authors developed a human-like mastication robot by using a human skull model. Furthermore the authors placed the actuators correspond to anterior and posterior part of M.temporalis with refer to the fan shape of the M.temporalis. The reduction of TMJF was confirmed in simulations with variable force vectors of M.temporalis. Experimentally the authors confirmed the 28% reduction of TMJF by using this robot. As conclusions, the authors proved the effectiveness of proposed theory in this study both simulations and experiments.
