Takahisa Kato

Tendon-Driven Continuum Robot for Endoscopic Surgery: Preclinical Development and Validation of a Tension Propagation Model

In this paper, we present a tendon-driven continuum robot for endoscopic surgery. The robot has two sections for articulation actuated by tendon wires. By actuating the two sections independently, the robot can generate a variety of tip positions while maintaining the tip direction. This feature offers more flexibility in positioning the tip for large viewing angles of up to 180° than does a conventional endoscope. To accurately estimate the tip position at large viewing angles, we employed kinematic mapping with a tension propagation model including friction between the tendon wires and the robot body. In a simulation study using this kinematic mapping, the two-section robot at a target scale (outer diameter 1.7 mm and length 60 mm) produced a variety of tip positions within 50-mm ranges at the 180° angle view. In the experimental validation, a 10:1 scale prototype performed three salient postures with different tip positions at the 180° angle view. The proposed forward kinematic mapping (FKM) predicted the tip position within a tip-to-tip error of 6 mm over the 208-mm articulating length. The tip-to-tip error by FKM was significantly less than the one by conventional piecewise-constant-curvature approximation (FKM: 5.9 ± 2.9 mm versus PCCA: 23.7 ± 3.6 mm, n = 15, P <; 0.01).

Tendon-driven continuum robot for neuroendoscopy: validation of extended kinematic mapping for hysteresis operation

PurposeThe hysteresis operation is an outstanding issue in tendon-driven actuation—which is used in robot-assisted surgery—as it is incompatible with kinematic mapping for control and trajectory planning. Here, a new tendon-driven continuum robot, designed to fit existing neuroendoscopes, is presented with kinematic mapping for hysteresis operation.MethodsWith attention to tension in tendons as a salient factor of the hysteresis operation, extended forward kinematic mapping (FKM) has been developed. In the experiment, the significance of every component in the robot for the hysteresis operation has been investigated. Moreover, the prediction accuracy of postures by the extended FKM has been determined experimentally and compared with piecewise constant curvature assumption.ResultsThe tendons were the most predominant factor affecting the hysteresis operation of the robot. The extended FKM including friction in tendons predicted the postures in the hysteresis operation with improved accuracy (2.89 and 3.87 mm for the single and the antagonistic-tendons layouts, respectively). The measured accuracy was within the target value of 5 mm for planning of neuroendoscopic resection of intraventricle tumors.ConclusionThe friction in tendons was the most predominant factor for the hysteresis operation in the robot. The extended FKM including this factor can improve prediction accuracy of the postures in the hysteresis operation. The trajectory of the new robot can be planned within target value for the neuroendoscopic procedure by using the extended FKM.

Extended kinematic mapping of tendon-driven continuum robot for neuroendoscopy

We have developed and validated a new tendon-driven continuum robot for neuroendoscopy. The tendon-driven continuum robot has the outer diameter of 3.4 mm and two bending sections. We have also newly introduced an extended forward kinematic mapping (FKM) with attention to the hysteresis operation of the robot. The extended FKM maps tension in tendons to the posture of the robot as time discrete valuables, and evolves the previous posture to the present posture. Through this computation process, the extended FKM performs mapping with the hysteresis. We conducted articulation experiments with the tendon-driven continuum robot to test the extended FKM. We measured the postures reached from two different initial postures as the hysteresis operation, and assessed the prediction accuracy of the postures in comparison to the FKM in our previous study. In the experimental results, the extended FKM predicted the postures in the hysteresis operation with improved accuracy (the maximum position error: 1.6 mm by the extended FKM vs. 3.5 mm by the FKM over 60 mm articulation length).

Development and evaluation of optical needle depth sensor for percutaneous diagnosis and therapies

Current methods of needle insertion during percutaneous CT and MRI guided procedures lack precision in needle depth sensing. The depth of the needle insertion is currently monitored through depth markers drawn on the needle and later confirmed by intra-procedural imaging; until this confirmation, the physicians’ judgment that the target is reached is solely based on the depth markers, which are not always clearly visible. We have therefore designed an optical sensing device which provides continuous feedback of needle insertion depth and degree of rotation throughout insertion. An optical mouse sensor was used in conjunction with a microcontroller board, Arduino Due, to acquire needle position information. The device is designed to be attached to a needle guidance robot developed for MRI-guided prostate biopsy in order to aid the manual insertion. An LCD screen and three LEDs were employed with the Arduino Due to form a hand-held device displaying needle depth and rotation. Accuracy of the device was tested to evaluate the impact of insertion speed and rotation. Unlike single dimensional needle depth sensing developed by other researchers, this two dimensional sensing device can also detect the rotation around the needle axis. The combination of depth and rotation sensing would be greatly beneficial for the needle steering approaches that require both depth and rotation information. Our preliminary results indicate that this sensing device can be useful in detecting needle motion when using an appropriate speed and range of motion.

Motion compensation for MRI-compatible patient-mounted needle guide device: estimation of targeting accuracy in MRI-guided kidney cryoablations

Patient-mounted needle guide devices for percutaneous ablation are vulnerable to patient motion. The objective of this study is to develop and evaluate a software system for an MRI-compatible patient-mounted needle guide device that can adaptively compensate for displacement of the device due to patient motion using a novel image-based automatic device-to-image registration technique. We have developed a software system for an MRI-compatible patient-mounted needle guide device for percutaneous ablation. It features fully-automated image-based device-to-image registration to track the device position, and a device controller to adjust the needle trajectory to compensate for the displacement of the device. We performed: (a) a phantom study using a clinical MR scanner to evaluate registration performance; (b) simulations using intraoperative time-series MR data acquired in 20 clinical cases of MRI-guided renal cryoablations to assess its impact on motion compensation; and (c) a pilot clinical study in three patients to test its feasibility during the clinical procedure. FRE, TRE, and success rate of device-to-image registration were 2.71 ± 2.29 mm, 1.74 ± 1.13 mm, and 98.3% for the phantom images. The simulation study showed that the motion compensation reduced the targeting error for needle placement from 8.2 mm to 5.4 mm (p  <  0.0005) in patients under general anesthesia (GA), and from 14.4 mm to 10.0 mm (p < 1.0 × 10(−5)) in patients under monitored anesthesia care (MAC). The pilot study showed that the software registered the device successfully in a clinical setting. Our simulation study demonstrated that the software system could significantly improve targeting accuracy in patients treated under both MAC and GA. Intraprocedural image-based device-to-image registration was feasible.