Date: Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM EST

Location: UAW 3115 - McIntire Conference Room

Virtual Link: Zoom

    Meeting ID: 839 686 8248

    Passcode: 911755

Nancy Joanna Deaton

Robotics Ph.D. Student

Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

Committee:

Dr. Jaydev P. Desai (Advisor) - Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Tech

Dr. Yue Chen - Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Tech

Dr. Shreyes Melkote - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech

Dr. F. Levent Degertekin - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech

Dr. Joshua Chern - Department of Neurosurgery, Emory University

Abstract:  

Manual manipulation of passive surgical tools can be challenging and may provide only limited access to target locations deep within the body. To navigate intricate anatomical structures during needle-based procedures, traditional passive needles may prove problematic, particularly in avoiding critical anatomy and accessing non-linear targets. This work proposes a steerable needle system consisting of a superelastic nitinol tube that is micromachined to create a tendon-driven bending joint. A model is derived to estimate the deflection due to the tendon pulling force, and electromagnetic (EM) tracking is initially used to control the needle along a curved path through a tissue phantom. Recognizing the limitations of EM tracking in operating rooms, intrinsic fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are developed for accurate shape feedback. A planar FBG bending sensor is created and effectively implemented for state estimation of the bending angle in both meso-scale and micro-scale surgical robotic devices. To expand this work, a 3D FBG-based shape sensor is created and characterized under different use cases. This shape sensor is then implemented in the micro-scale coaxially aligned steerable (COAST) guidewire robot, and the most distal FBG sensing segment is isolated and correlated to external forces to provide feedback towards safe navigation through complex vasculature. In the proposed work, a steerable needle system with integrated shape sensing is developed for the safe navigation through complex anatomies and the delivery of minimally invasive procedures to target locations which are currently challenging to access.