Loschak Paul M, Brattain Laura J, Howe Robert D
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA, 02420.
IEEE Trans Robot. 2017 Feb;33(1):81-91. doi: 10.1109/TRO.2016.2623331. Epub 2016 Dec 1.
A system for automatically pointing ultrasound (US) imaging catheters will enable clinicians to monitor anatomical structures and track instruments during interventional procedures. Off-the-shelf US catheters provide high quality US images from within the patient. While this method of imaging has been proven to be effective for guiding many interventional treatments, significant training is required to overcome the difficulty in manually steering the imager to point at desired structures. Our system uses closed-form four degree of freedom (DOF) kinematic solutions to automatically position the US catheter and point the imager. Algorithms for steering and imager pointing were developed for a range of useful diagnostic and interventional motions. The system was validated on a robotic test bed by steering the catheter within a water environment containing phantom objects. While the system described here was designed for pointing ultrasound catheters, these algorithms are applicable to accurate 4-DOF steering and orientation control of any long thin tendon-driven tool with single or bi-directional bending.
一种用于自动定位超声（US）成像导管的系统，将使临床医生能够在介入手术过程中监测解剖结构并跟踪器械。现成的超声导管可在患者体内提供高质量的超声图像。虽然这种成像方法已被证明对指导许多介入治疗有效，但需要大量训练来克服手动操纵成像仪指向所需结构的困难。我们的系统使用封闭形式的四自由度（DOF）运动学解决方案来自动定位超声导管并指向成像仪。针对一系列有用的诊断和介入运动，开发了用于操纵和成像仪指向的算法。该系统在包含模拟物体的水环境中通过操纵导管在机器人试验台上进行了验证。虽然这里描述的系统是为定位超声导管而设计的，但这些算法适用于任何具有单方向或双向弯曲的细长腱驱动工具的精确四自由度操纵和方向控制。
