Hoelscher Janine, Fried Inbar, Tsalikis Spiros, Akulian Jason, Webster Robert J, Alterovitz Ron
Department of Bioengineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29681, USA.
Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
IEEE Trans Robot. 2025;41:2424-2440. doi: 10.1109/TRO.2025.3552323. Epub 2025 Mar 17.
Steerable needles are minimally invasive devices that enable novel medical procedures by following curved paths to avoid critical anatomical obstacles. We introduce a new start pose robustness metric for steerable needle motion plans. A steerable needle deployment typically consists of a physician manually placing a steerable needle at a precomputed start pose on the surface of tissue and handing off control to a robot, which then autonomously steers the needle through the tissue to the target. The handoff between humans and robots is critical for procedure success, as even small deviations from a planned start pose change the steerable needle's reachable workspace. Our metric is based on a novel geometric method to efficiently compute how far the physician can deviate from the planned start pose in both position and orientation such that the steerable needle can still reach the target. We evaluate our metric through simulation in liver and lung scenarios. Our evaluation shows that our metric can be applied to plans computed by different steerable needle motion planners and that it can be used to efficiently select plans with large safe start regions.
可操纵针是一种微创设备，通过沿着弯曲路径行进以避开关键解剖障碍物，从而实现新型医疗程序。我们引入了一种用于可操纵针运动规划的新起始姿态鲁棒性度量。可操纵针的部署通常包括医生手动将可操纵针放置在组织表面预先计算好的起始姿态上，然后将控制权交给机器人，机器人随后自主地将针引导穿过组织到达目标。人与机器人之间的交接对于手术成功至关重要，因为即使与计划起始姿态有微小偏差也会改变可操纵针的可达工作空间。我们的度量基于一种新颖的几何方法，可有效计算医生在位置和方向上与计划起始姿态的偏差程度，使得可操纵针仍能到达目标。我们通过在肝脏和肺部场景中的模拟来评估我们的度量。我们的评估表明，我们的度量可应用于由不同可操纵针运动规划器计算出的计划，并且可用于有效选择具有大安全起始区域的计划。
