Towards MR-Guided Robotic Intracerebral Hemorrhage Evacuation: Aiming Device Design and ex vivo Ovine Head Trial.

Stereotactic neurosurgery is a well-established surgical technique for navigation and guidance during treatment of intracranial pathologies. Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is an example of various neurosurgical conditions that can benefit from stereotactic neurosurgery. As a part of our ongoing work toward real-time MR-guided ICH evacuation, we aim to address an unmet clinical need for a skull-mounted frameless stereotactic aiming device that can be used with minimally invasive robotic systems for MR-guided interventions. In this paper, we present NICE-Aiming, a Neurosurgical, Interventional, Configurable device for Effective-Aiming in MR-guided robotic neurosurgical interventions. A kinematic model was developed and the system was used with a concentric tube robot (CTR) for ICH evacuation in (i) a skull phantom and (ii) in the first ever reported ex vivo CTR ICH evacuation using an ex vivo ovine head. The NICE-Aiming prototype provided a tip accuracy of 1.41±0.35 mm in free-space. In the MR-guided gel phantom experiment, the targeting accuracy was 2.07±0.42 mm and the residual hematoma volume was 12.87 mL (24.32% of the original volume). In the MR-guided ex vivo ovine head experiment, the targeting accuracy was 2.48±0.48 mm and the residual hematoma volume was 1.42 mL (25.08% of the original volume).

Neuromuscular basis of Drosophila larval rolling escape behavior.

When threatened by dangerous or harmful stimuli, animals engage in diverse forms of rapid escape behaviors. In Drosophila larvae, one type of escape response involves C-shaped bending and lateral rolling followed by rapid forward crawling. The sensory circuitry that promotes larval escape has been extensively characterized; however, the motor programs underlying rolling are unknown. Here, we characterize the neuromuscular basis of rolling escape behavior. We used high-speed, volumetric, Swept Confocally Aligned Planar Excitation (SCAPE) microscopy to image muscle activity during larval rolling. Unlike sequential peristaltic muscle contractions that progress from segment to segment during forward and backward crawling, muscle activity progresses circumferentially during bending and rolling escape behavior. We propose that progression of muscular contraction around the larva's circumference results in a transient misalignment between weight and the ground support forces, which generates a torque that induces stabilizing body rotation. Therefore, successive cycles of slight misalignment followed by reactive aligning rotation lead to continuous rolling motion. Supporting our biomechanical model, we found that disrupting the activity of muscle groups undergoing circumferential contraction progression leads to rolling defects. We use EM connectome data to identify premotor to motor connectivity patterns that could drive rolling behavior and perform neural silencing approaches to demonstrate the crucial role of a group of glutamatergic premotor neurons in rolling. Our data reveal body-wide muscle activity patterns and putative premotor circuit organization for execution of the rolling escape response.

RRT*-based Path Planning for Continuum Arms.

Continuum arms are bio-inspired devices that exhibit continuous, smooth bending and generate motion through structural deformation. Rapidly-exploring random trees (RRT) is a traditional approach for performing efficient path planning. RRT approaches are usually based on exploring the configuration space (C-Space) of the robot to find a desirable work space (W-Space) path. Due to the complex kinematics and the highly non-linear mapping between the C-Space and W-Space of continuum arms, a high-quality path in the C-Space (e.g., a linear path) may not correspond to a desirable path/movement in the W-Space. Consequently, the C-Space RRT approaches that are based on C-Space cost functions do not lead to reliable and effective path planning when applied to continuum arms. In this paper, we propose a RRT* path planning approach for continuum arms that is based on exploring the W-Space of the robot as opposed to its C-Space. We show the successful applications of the proposed W-Space RRT* path planner in performing path planning with obstacle avoidance and in performing trajectory tracking. In all the aforementioned tasks, the quality of the paths generated by the proposed planner is superior to that of previous approaches and to its counterpart C-Space based RRT* approach, while the paths are generated in substantially less time.

Fiber Optic Shape Sensing for Soft Robotics.

While soft material actuators can undergo large deformations to execute very complex motions, what is critically lacking in soft material robotic systems is the ability to collect high-resolution shape information for sophisticated functions such as environmental mapping, collision detection, and full state feedback control. This work explores the potential of a nearly commercial fiber optic shape sensor (FOSS) and presents the first demonstrations of a monolithic, multicore FOSS integrated into the structure of a fiber-reinforced soft actuator. In this pilot study, we report an open loop sensorized soft actuator capable of submillimeter position feedback that can detect the soft actuator's shape, environmental shapes, collision locations, and material stiffness properties.

MR-conditional steerable needle robot for intracerebral hemorrhage removal.

BACKGROUND: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is one of the deadliest forms of stroke in the USA. Conventional surgical techniques such as craniotomy or stereotactic aspiration disrupt a large volume of healthy brain tissue in their attempts to reach the surgical site. Consequently, the surviving patients suffer from debilitating complications. METHODS: We fabricated a novel MR-conditional steerable needle robot for ICH treatment. The robot system is powered by a custom-designed high power and low-cost pneumatic motor. We tested the robot's targeting accuracy and MR-conditionality performance, and performed phantom evacuation experiment under MR image guidance. RESULTS: Experiments demonstrate that the robotic hardware is MR-conditional; the robot has the targeting accuracy of 1.26 ± 1.22 mm in bench-top tests. With real-time MRI guidance, the robot successfully reached the desired target and evacuated an 11.3 ml phantom hematoma in 9 min. CONCLUSION: MRI-guided steerable needle robotic system is a potentially feasible approach for ICH treatment by providing accurate needle guidance and intraoperative surgical outcome evaluation.

Through the Eustachian Tube and Beyond: A New Miniature Robotic Endoscope to See Into The Middle Ear.

This paper presents a novel miniature robotic endoscope that is small enough to pass through the Eustachian tube and provide visualization of the middle ear (ME). The device features a miniature bending tip previously conceived of as a small-scale robotic wrist that has been adapted to carry and aim a small chip-tip camera and fiber optic light sources. The motivation for trans-Eustachian tube ME inspection is to provide a natural-orifice-based route to the ME that does not require cutting or lifting the eardrum, as is currently required. In this paper, we first perform an analysis of the ME anatomy and use a computational design optimization platform to derive the kinematic requirements for endoscopic inspection of the ME through the Eustachian tube. Based on these requirements, we fabricate the proposed device and use it to demonstrate the feasibility of ME inspection in an anthropomorphic model, i.e. a 3D-printed ME phantom generated from patient image data. We show that our prototype provides > 74% visibility coverage of the sinus tympani, a region of the ME crucial for diagnosis, compared to an average of only 6.9% using a straight, non-articulated endoscope through the Eustachian Tube.

Characterization and Control of a Pneumatic Motor for MR-conditional Robotic Applications.

Magnetic Resonance (MR) guided interventional robots have recently been developed for a variety of surgeries, such as biopsy, ablation, and brachytherapy. The actuators and encoders that power and track such robots must be MR-conditional. In this paper, we propose an MR-conditional pneumatic motor with an integrated and custom-built fiber-optical encoder that provides powerful and accurate actuation. The motor is coupled with a modular plastic gearbox that provides a variety of gear ratio options so that the motor can be adapted to application requirements. With a 100:1 gear reduction at 0.55 MPa, the motor achieves 460 mNm stall torque and 370 rpm no-load speed, which leads to the peak output power of 6W. The motor has the bandwidth of approximately 1.1 Hz and 3.5 Hz when connected to 8 m and 0.2 m air hoses, respectively. The motor was tested in a 3T MRI scanner. No image artifact was observed and maximum signal to noise ratio (SNR) variation was less than 5%. Different from most of the existing MR-conditional pneumatic actuators, the proposed motor shape is more like the traditional electric motors, which offers more flexibility in the MR-conditional robot design.

Modal kinematics for multisection continuum arms.

This paper presents a novel spatial kinematic model for multisection continuum arms based on mode shape functions (MSF). Modal methods have been used in many disciplines from finite element methods to structural analysis to approximate complex and nonlinear parametric variations with simple mathematical functions. Given certain constraints and required accuracy, this helps to simplify complex phenomena with numerically efficient implementations leading to fast computations. A successful application of the modal approximation techniques to develop a new modal kinematic model for general variable length multisection continuum arms is discussed. The proposed method solves the limitations associated with previous models and introduces a new approach for readily deriving exact, singularity-free and unique MSF's that simplifies the approach and avoids mode switching. The model is able to simulate spatial bending as well as straight arm motions (i.e., pure elongation/contraction), and introduces inverse position and orientation kinematics for multisection continuum arms. A kinematic decoupling feature, splitting position and orientation inverse kinematics is introduced. This type of decoupling has not been presented for these types of robotic arms before. The model also carefully accounts for physical constraints in the joint space to provide enhanced insight into practical mechanics and impose actuator mechanical limitations onto the kinematics thus generating fully realizable results. The proposed method is easily applicable to a broad spectrum of continuum arm designs.