Autonomous robotic intracardiac catheter navigation using haptic vision

Abstract

While all minimally invasive procedures involve navigating from a small incision in the skin to the site of the intervention, it has not been previously demonstrated how this can be done autonomously. To show that autonomous navigation is possible, we investigated it in the hardest place to do it – inside the beating heart. We created a robotic catheter that can navigate through the blood-filled heart using wall-following algorithms inspired by positively thigmotactic animals. The catheter employs haptic vision, a hybrid sense using imaging for both touch-based surface identification and force sensing, to accomplish wall following inside the blood-filled heart. Through in vivo animal experiments, we demonstrate that the performance of an autonomously-controlled robotic catheter rivals that of an experienced clinician. Autonomous navigation is a fundamental capability on which more sophisticated levels of autonomy can be built, e.g., to perform a procedure. Similar to the role of automation in fighter aircraft, such capabilities can free the clinician to focus on the most critical aspects of the procedure while providing precise and repeatable tool motions independent of operator experience and fatigue.

Advanced Intelligent Systems for Surgical Robotics

“…Supervised autonomy, therefore, seems to be a suitable approach in most existing surgical procedures compared with full autonomy. [354,355] Human skills and experiences can contribute to decrease the adoption barrier for robotic systems and ensure successful execution with supervised autonomy. Although deep-learning methods have achieved impressive results and outperformed human skills in some cases, the development of robotic system intelligence to a similar human level is currently unlikely due to the complexity to build.…”

“…Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School demonstrated an intelligent platform that can automatically navigate into the human heart valve with better performance compared with previous approaches. [384] Safety is a paramount concern for most robot-assisted surgical procedures that need to be addressed to achieve wider acceptance. Although surgical robots have been developed and successfully validated by many clinical trials, fears, and uncertainties with the environment and tools when working with robots in an autonomous mode still exists.…”

Your robot surgeon will see you now

“…To pinpoint its precise location, the robot makes repeated gentle tapping contact with the heart wall, "like cockroaches tapping with their antennae", Dupont says. In animal trials this year, the robot successfully navigated from its entry point to the damaged valve area 95% of the time 4 .…”

Deep learning robotic guidance for autonomous vascular access

“…ance, perception, robotic planning and computing have provided medical robotic systems with the intelligence and manoeuvrability to perform challenging interventional tasks on soft tissues with supervised autonomy and comparable performance to trained practitioners [3][4][5][6][7] . One task in which positioning guidance is particularly important is percutaneous cannulation of soft tissues such as blood vessels.…”