Magnetic Trackers: Robot Control and Vasculature Imaging - Microsurgery: Advances, Simulations, and Applications - page 249

1. To add the feedback of a force sensor on the catheter tip as
described [13-14]. The lexibility of the catheter would have
to be tested, as well as the effects of this sensor fusion with the
magnetic tracker.
2. Another way could be to detect if the catheter is trapped, by
controlling the speed of the tip of the catheter, or by using
the photo-elastic effect to get feedback of the stress on the
vascular wall.
As a irst clinical application of the ACIS is to be a medical training
tool to store catheter insertion paths done by dexterous surgeons
inside silicone models of vasculature. Then the stored knowledge
could be reconstructed using the ACIS without the presence of the
surgeon, thus providing a new tool for training and knowledge
sharing in endovascular surgery. Also such a training system should
be used to evaluate the robustness of the system and risks for an
in vivo autonomous catheter insertion experiment inside ureter or
from femoral artery to aorta arch. If sensor fusion is used, the data
of the magnetic trackers and intravascular ultrasound probe could
be integrated into a system for building the reference trajectory.
New techniques to build sparse LUTs should be founded to increase
the number of robot control applications of this method. The size of
the micro coil of the sensor placed on the catheter tip is a limitation
because it cannot be inserted through vascular structures with small
cross section diameter and with small curvature radius due to its 8
mm length. If Figs. 7.9 and 7.20 are compared, it can be observed
that the LSM moves the catheter in a discrete form compared with
the continuous motion when the catheter is inserted by hand. As
the insertion path may be reproduced by means of LSM, a similar
methodology combined with photo-elastic effect could be used
to evaluate the stress produced by different kinds of catheters on
the vascular wall. If such experimental setup is constructed, the
performance of catheters inside human vascular lumen could be
compared using quantitative data.

7.5 Vasculature Imaging Based on Magnetic

Trackers and Intravascular Ultrasounds

Real-time three-dimensional vasculature imaging has applications
for vascular disease characterization, such as atherosclerotic disease,