Toward Real-Time MRI-Guided Steerable Needle Robots: Experiments with Bevel and Concentric Tube Needles
Hao Su and Gregory S. Fischer
Automation and Interventional Medicine Laboratory, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA
Abstract
Steerable needles are a novel robotic technique that offers many clinical benefits. A steerable needle not only enables highly focused therapy that enhances intervention efficacy by compensating for sources of error during insertion, but also reduces invasiveness by minimizing the number of repeated needle insertions required. However, there are yet to be successful deployment of MRI-guided needle steering robot systems. In addition to the challenges associated with needle steering, controlling a needle path in MRI is impeded by challenges due to electromagnetic compatibility within the high-field (1.5 Tesla or greater) MRI environment, constraints of the close-bore MRI and the difficulty of needle position sensing with MR images. This work describes a hardware and software system that enables deployment of MRI-guided steerable needles.
We present two image-guided steerable needle robot systems that are compact and capable of operating inside close-bore MRI scanner during live imaging. One robot is configured for bevel-based needle steering, and the other configured as a concentric tube continuum robot. Both utilize piezoelectric actuation based on our custom-developed MRI robot control system. The robot provides motion with joint-level precision of better than 0.03 mm, and is fully MRI-compatible allowing simultaneous needle motion and imaging with no image quality degradation. The MRI compatibility, joint space accuracy, task space accuracy and MRI-guided needle placement were evaluated to validate the system’s targeting ability in image-guided surgery. RMS error in free space of active cannula placement was 1.00 mm and three trajectories executed inside MRI showed accuracy better than 3mm. Current work is focused on utilizing real-time MR imaging to implement closed-loop delivery of the needle to the target.
Related Publications
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H. Su, D. Cardona, W. Shang, G. Cole, C. Rucker, R. Webster III and G. S. Fischer, “A MRI-Guided Concentric Tube Continuum Robot with Piezoelectric Actuation: A Feasibility Study”, IEEE ICRA 2012 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, 2012
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H. Su, M. Zervas, G. Cole, C. Furlong and G. S. Fischer, “Real-time MRI-Guided Needle Placement Robot with Integrated Fiber Optic Force Sensing”, IEEE ICRA 2011 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shanghai, China, 2011
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H. Su, W. Shang, K. Harrington, A. Camilo, G. Cole, J. Tokuda, N. Hata, C. Tempany, and G. S. Fischer, “A Networked Modular Hardware and Software system for MRI-guided Robotic Prostate Interventions", SPIE Medical Imaging (Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling Conference), San Diego, USA, 2012
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G. S. Fischer, G.A. Cole, and H. Su, “Approaches to Creating and Controlling Motion in MRI”, In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Boston, USA, 2011 (Invited Paper)
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