Title: Design, Modeling, and Control of a Concentric Tube Robot for MR-Guided Intracerebral Hemorrhage Evacuation

Student Name: Anthony L. Gunderman

      Robotics Ph.D. Student

      School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

      Georgia Institute of Technology

Date: 02/21/2024 (Wednesday)

Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM EST

In-Person Location: UAW 3115 – McIntire Conference Room

Virtual Link: Zoom

                       Meeting ID: 258 592 5197

                       Passcode: 043355

Committee:

Dr. Yue Chen (Advisor) – Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Jaydev P. Desai – Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Jun Ueda – Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Kevin Cleary – Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, Children’s National Hospital

Dr. Saikat Sengupta – Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Abstract:

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a type of hemorrhagic stroke that is caused by the rupture of a cerebral blood vessel. Recently, the ENRICH trial has confirmed that minimally invasive surgery (MIS) can improve functional outcomes. While MIS offers advantages, challenges remain, including limited instrumentation dexterity and inadequate intraprocedural visualization. This work proposes the development of a MR-guided concentric tube robot (CTR) for ICH evacuation. The system hardware consists of nylon, pre-curved tubes for increased dexterity, turbine-based pneumatic actuators for MR-safe actuation, fiber-optic limit switches, and a compact, manually operated aiming device. For task-space control, a model is derived using strain-energy methods with friction-based torsional compensation to model the CTR shape. For actuation-space control, a comprehensive model and control strategy are developed that considers the dynamics of the (1) motor, (2) pneumatic transmission line, and (3) valve. In the proposed work, the CTR system is used ex vivo and in vivo sheep trials with surgeon-in-loop intraoperative MR-guidance. The contributions of the proposed work include improvement of the robot hardware, (ii) a method for MR-tracking of the shape of continuum robots, (iii) a method of ICH hematoma production, and (iv) an evaluation of the system in ex vivo and in vivo sheep studies.