Abstract: This talk presents the current state of our research towards development of a robotic active catheter system for performing intravascular cardiac interventions under real-time intra-operative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guidance. The goal of the research is to create higher efficacy treatment options for cardiac ablation and device implantation procedures by synergistically integrating high-speed MRI technologies with robotic motion planning and control techniques. In the proposed robotic catheter based therapy paradigm, the cardiac interventions will be performed under intra-operative MRI-guidance, and conventional manual intravascular catheters will be replaced with robotic catheters controlled by the physician. The proposed system will employ a new MRI-compatible magnetic actuation scheme, in which current-carrying micro-coils mounted on the catheter is used to generate deflection of the catheter inside the magnetic field of the MRI scanner. The location of the catheter tip and the target tissue will be measured by magnetic resonance imaging in real-time, and the robotic control algorithms will use this information to actively control the catheter tip.

Realizing the envisioned system requires advancing the state-of-the-art in robotic actuation, planning, perception, and control, as well as in high-speed magnetic image acquisition and reconstruction. The presentation will focus on our work on the robotics side of the problem. I will introduce the design of the catheter and the analysis of its actuation, followed by the modeling of the catheter kinematics and optimization of the catheter design. I will present results from open-loop control experiments and dynamics response analysis of the system. I will discuss our work on robotic motion control algorithms for active cancellation of the beating heart motion, and robotic motion planning for performing different phases of intravascular cardiac interventions. Finally, I will conclude the presentation with our recent work on probabilistic active sensing algorithms that will be used to control the image acquisition system.

Bio: M. Cenk Cavusoglu is currently the Nord Professor of Engineering at the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), with secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Computer and Data Sciences. He received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1995, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997 and 2000, respectively. He was a Visiting Researcher at the INRIA Rhones-Alpes Research Center, Grenoble, France (1998); a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley (2000-2002); and, a Visiting Associate Professor at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey (2009-2010).

Dr. Cavusoglu's research spans the general areas of robotics and human-machine interfaces with special emphasis on medical robotics, and haptics. Specifically, for the past 25+ years, he has been conducting research on all of the different aspects of medical robotic systems from control, mechanism, and system design, to human-machine interfaces, haptics, and algorithms.

More information on Dr. Cavusoglu's research can be found at his homepage at
https://engineering.case.edu/cenkcavusoglu