Autonomous image-guided robot-assisted active catheter insertion

Interventional cardiologists are at great risk from radiation exposure due to lengthy procedures performed under X-ray radiations. Angioplasty is one such procedure wherein the clinician guides a catheter into the femoral artery under X-rays and the procedure often extends to over 50 min. A clinician performs several hundred such procedures over his/her lifetime, leading to an accumulation of the total radiation he/she is exposed to. In this paper, we investigate autonomous robot-assisted insertion of an active catheter instrumented with Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators using image guidance. The tip of the active catheter is tracked in real time to provide information on the location of the catheter that determines the optimal stroke length of insertion for the robot and the necessary bending angle for the active catheter. The catheter is autonomously guided from the point of entry to the site of plaque buildup, thereby shielding the clinician from harmful radiation due to the X-rays used for imaging and providing a more ergonomic approach for catheter insertion. Experimental results are given to illustrate the robot-assisted catheter insertion procedure using image guidance.