A robot guidewire (red) is automatically guided in patient’s vessels towards a desired location (green)

Automated Planning for Robotic Guidewire Navigation in the Coronary Arteries

A robot guidewire (red) is automatically guided in patient’s vessels towards a desired location (green)

Automated Planning for Robotic Guidewire Navigation in the Coronary Arteries

Abstract

Soft continuum robots, and comparable instruments allow to perform some surgical procedures non-invasively. While safer, less morbid and more cost-effective, these medical interventions increase the complexity for the practitioners: the manipulation of anatomical structures is indirect through telescopic and flexible devices and the visual feedback is indirect through monitors. Interventional cardiology is an example of complex procedures where catheters and guidewires are manipulated to reach and treat remote areas of the vascular network. Such interventions may be assisted with a robot that will operate the tools but the planning (choice of tools and trajectories) remains a complex task. In this paper we use a simulation framework for flexible devices inside the vasculature and we propose a method to automatically control these devices to reach specific locations. Experiments performed on 15 patient geometries exhibit good performance. Automatic manipulation reaches the goal in more than 90% of the cases.

Publication
2022 IEEE 5th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft)