Vascular Interventional Robot System Research Articles

Design and evaluation of vascular interventional robot system for complex coronary artery lesions.

At present, most vascular intervention robots cannot cope with the more common coronary complex lesions in the clinic. Moreover, the lack of effective force feedback increases the risk of surgery. In this paper, a vascular interventional robot that can collaboratively deliver multiple interventional instruments has been developed to assist doctors in the operation of complex lesions. Based on the doctor's skills and the delivery principle of interventional instruments, the main and slave manipulators of the robot system are designed. Haptic force feedback is generated through resistance measuring mechanism and active drag system. In addition, a force feedback control strategy based on force-velocity mapping is proposed to realize the continuous change of force and avoid vibration. The proposed robot system was evaluated through a series of experiments. The experimental results show that the system can accurately measure the delivery resistance of interventional instruments, and provide haptic force feedback to doctors. The capability of the system to collaboratively deliver multiple interventional instruments is effective. Therefore, it can be considered that the robot system is feasible and effective.

Multilevel Operation Strategy of a Vascular Interventional Robot System for Surgical Safety in Teleoperation

Remote-controlled vascular interventional robots have great potential for use in minimally invasive vascular surgeries in recent years due to their ability to reduce the occupational risk of surgeons and improve the stability and accuracy of surgical procedures. However, blood vessels will suffer from the damage caused by collision with medical instruments to some extent even though the surgeries are very successful. Moreover, when surgeons perform unsafe operations, the unsafe operations will not only seriously affect surgical safety (or even cause serious complications) but also restrict the continuity of operation. In this article, a multilevel concept for operating force is first introduced into surgical procedures as a reference for the choice and design of operation strategies. Based on this concept, a novel multilevel operation strategy is first proposed to reduce blood vessel damage, ensure surgical safety, and allow for continuous operation. This strategy can remind surgeons about the operative conditions in real-time, reduce collision to blood vessels, and eliminate unsafe operations online. A prototype was fabricated and calibrated through calibration experiments and the performance of the multilevel operation strategy was validated through <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in vitro</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ex vivo</i> experiments. Experimental results demonstrate the engineering effectiveness of the proposed method and motivate the need for further <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in vivo</i> studies to evaluate improvement on surgical safety.

Cloud Communication-Based Sensing Performance Evaluation of a Vascular Interventional Robot System

As an essential method for diagnosing and treating cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, interventional surgery has always been a research hotspot in biomedical engineering research. The vascular interventional robot can improve the surgical environment of the surgeon and improve the safety and stability of the operation when assisting the surgeon to complete the surgical operation. In today&#x2019;s global pandemic phenomena, the study of operating vascular interventional robots in remote situations is of more significant value. Based on the previous animal experiments and clinical trials, this paper presents a preliminary study of the interventional robot to complete surgery operations under the condition of long-distance cloud communication. After analyzing the influence of time delay in remote operation, a control strategy for predicting time delay was proposed, and an evaluation experiment was conducted. Through the human model evaluation, the sensing performance of robotic surgery under the condition of long-distance cloud communication is analyzed and compared with the experiments in previous studies. The experimental results show that the operator can remotely control the robot to complete the intubation operation, which is valuable for further study and animal experiments.

A Novel Remote-Controlled Vascular Interventional Robotic System Based on Hollow Ultrasonic Motor.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the deadliest diseases worldwide. Master-slave robotic systems have been widely used in vascular interventional surgery with the benefit of high safety, efficient operation, and procedural facilitation. This paper introduces a remote-controlled vascular interventional robot (RVIR) that aims to enable surgeons to perform complex vascular interventions reliably and accurately under a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environment. The slave robot includes a guidewire manipulator (GM) and catheter manipulator (CM) that are mainly composed of a hollow driving mechanism and a linear motion platform. The hollow driving mechanism is based on a traveling wave-type hollow ultrasonic motor (HUM) which has high positional precision, fast response, and magnetic interference resistance and realizes the cooperation of the guidewire and catheter by omitting the redundant transmission mechanism and maintaining good coaxiality. The HUM stator, the core part of the RVIR, is optimized by an adaptive genetic algorithm for better quality and greater amplitude of traveling waves, which are beneficial to the drive efficiency and precision. The robot system features great cooperating performance, small hysteresis, and high kinematic accuracy and has been experimentally verified for its capability to precisely manipulate the guidewire and catheter.

Fuzzy Fusion of Forces Feedback in Vascular Interventional Surgery Robot System

In order to consummate the master-slave robot system used in vascular interventional procedures,a closed loop of force is rebuilt.Two micro force sensors are integrated with a catheter,which can measure those forces between the tip or side wall of the catheter and vascular walls respectively at the same time.Given that the master-slave mode is different from the traditional hands-on operation and that it is necessary to ensure the sustained effect of the valuable experience from surgeons,a two-input one-output model in fuzzy inference is adopted to accomplish the fusion of the two sensors’ data.By means of calibrating membership functions and establishing a table of fusion rules,experience is converted into numerical strategies about the force feedback,which not only improves the force reflection under low sampling rate,but also characterizes collisions accurately with different resolutions.It ensures the safety,applicability and efficiency of the robot system.

Experimental study of angiography using vascular interventional robot-2(VIR-2)

To verify the feasibility and safety of new vascular interventional robot system used in vascular interventional procedures. Vascular interventional robot type-2 (VIR-2) included master-slave parts of body propulsion system, image navigation systems and force feedback system, the catheter movement could achieve under automatic control and navigation, force feedback was integrated real-time, followed by in vitro pre-test in vascular model and cerebral angiography in dog. Surgeon controlled vascular interventional robot remotely, the catheter was inserted into the intended target, the catheter positioning error and the operation time would be evaluated. In vitro pre-test and animal experiment went well; the catheter can enter any branch of vascular. Catheter positioning error was less than 1 mm. The angiography operation in animal was carried out smoothly without complication; the success rate of the operation was 100% and the entire experiment took 26 and 30 minutes, efficiency was slightly improved compared with the VIR-1, and the time what staff exposed to the DSA machine was 0 minute. The resistance of force sensor can be displayed to the operator to provide a security guarantee for the operation. No surgical complications. VIR-2 is safe and feasible, and can achieve the catheter remote operation and angiography; the master-slave system meets the characteristics of traditional procedure. The three-dimensional image can guide the operation more smoothly; force feedback device provides remote real-time haptic information to provide security for the operation.

Design and Analysis for Minimally Invasive Vascular Interventional Surgical Robot System

Design and Analysis for Minimally Invasive Vascular Interventional Surgical Robot System

Application Study of Vascular Interventional Robotic Mechanism for Remote Steering

Background: Recently, robotic systems have been introduced as a useful method for surgical procedures. But in the field of vascular interventional therapy, the development of robotic system is slower.Objective: The purpose of the study is to verify the reliability and safety of vascular interventional robotic system used in angiography, by the way of in vitro preliminary experiments and animal experiments.Method: The approach is to employ a proprietary vascular interventional robot system to complete glass vessel models and animal angiogram experiments. This robot system consists of a console port (remote steering system), an assistant port (propelled and rotation system) and a hydraulic fixing device, upon which surgeons control remotely to make go forward and rotate in the glass vessel models and animal vessels, on the 3D operation interface. Consequently, the operation time and success rate are counted and evaluated.Result: In the glass vessel model experiments, the Catheter can enter various kinds of vessel models with inside diameter length greater than 3mm and angle less than 90o. In the animal (adult dogs) experiments, surgeons can accomplish smoothly the angiogram of the renal artery, the vertebral renal and the arteria carotis communis, without any complications of surgery.Conclusion: The angiogram by using vascular interventional robot system is safe and reliable. Surgeons can finish the angiogram in part by remote operation, and the result of angiogram can meet a number of simple expectations. However without wire control and force feedback systems, the applicability of this kind of robot system is not flexible enough and need to be improved in the future.

Application study of medical robots in vascular intervention

Based on the background of minimally invasive surgery and applications of medical robots, a vascular interventional robotic system has been developed that can be used in the field of vascular intervention. The robotic system comprises a propulsion system, an image navigation system and a virtual surgery training system. Integration of the three systems constitutes a vascular intervention prototype robotic system used to carry out in vitro vascular intervention and animal experiments. On a transparent glass vascular model, a catheter was shown to enter an arbitrary branch of the vascular model with catheter motion meeting the requirements of clinical vascular intervention surgery (VIS); i.e. error band of catheter motion < 0.5 mm. In the animal experiments, 1.33-2.00 mm (4F-6F) diameter catheters were selectively inserted successfully into predefined targets in the animal, such as the renal, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular artery. Compared with conventional manual surgery, the time for robotic surgery is a little longer. There were no operative complications in the animal experiments. These simulation and animal study results demonstrate that this vascular interventional robotic system allows doctors to perform angiography remotely and prevents them from radiation exposure. The system may be the basis for further clinical applications of vascular intervention.

Experimental study of angiography using vascular interventional robot

To assess the feasibility and safety of vascular interventional surgery by using vascular interventional robot system (VIRS). VIRS included image navigation systems and body propulsion systems, and adopted a master-slave structure. The surgeon sat at the master site, sending controlling instructions to the robot fixed at the slave site, and then the robot translated these instructions into catheter motion. A 3D vascular model was reconstructed so that the surgeon can perform surgical planning easily. In glass model and animal experiments, the surgeon remotely controlled VIRS, which inserted a catheter into predefined targets, and the catheter positioning error and robotic surgery time were measured. The robot was initially tested on a glass vascular model. Under robotic manipulation, the catheter could enter an arbitrary branch of the vascular model. The catheter positioning error was less than 1 mm. Then robotic interventional surgery was performed successfully in ten adult dogs. The renal artery and the vertebral artery angiography carried out smoothly without complication. Experiment took 35 minutes, and the time what staff exposed to the digital subtraction angiography (DSA) machine was 0 minute. Vascular interventional surgical robot system is safe and feasible, and can achieve the catheter remote operation, meet the requirements of angiography basically.