MIROS
The MIROS (Multimodal Image-guided RObot-assisted Surgeries) Project
The rapidly evolving minimally invasive surgeries are establishing as a more patient-friendly and cost-effective alternative to traditional open surgeries. Among the important factors for their further advancement are the incorporation of real-time image guidance, robotic manipulators and human-information/machine-interfacing, integrated via a robust and efficient computational core.
Motivated by the potential impact of the aforementioned technology in the healthcare of the 21st Century, and inspired and suppoeted by the unique opportunity of the Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF), we pursued the development of a novel cyber-physical system for Multimodal Image-guided RObot-assisted Surgeries (we call it the MIROS). We anticipate that the general intellectual merit and far-reaching impact of this work will be the development of computational methodology to enable a leap in minimally invasive procedures (a) from “keyhole” visualization (i.e., laparoscopy) to in-situ real-time imaging guidance, and (b) toward using the emerging steerable or shape-conformable tools. Our primary directive and hypothesis is the reliance on true sensing of the physical world with multi-contrast imaging to control the surgical robot while offering a comprehensive perception to the operator.
In particular, to bridge the physical world (patient, robot, imager, and operator) and the cyber world (computational framework that processes information and manages the system) we develop and integrate three primary methodology-development directives:·
Introduction of MRI data collection and image processing strategies that mature raw imaging data to decision-making quality information.
Development of control strategies that capitalize on the multi-modal image-extracted information to maneuver a conformable robotic manipulator to the targeted area under conditions of dynamically changing tissue geometry. Endowed with event-based reactivity, this controller will also adjust on-the-fly the MRI scanner to supplement missing information.
Development of human-information/machine-interfacing that maximizes the conveyed informational content (i.e., offering a comprehensive appreciation of the physical environment) for minimal work-load but comprehensive perception in setting up, configuring and minimal distraction at its in-the-field operation.
The performance of this system is investigated at the highly demanding physical conditions encountered in cardiac procedures of aortic valve replacement and intra-myocardial interventions on virtual and experimental studies on a moving phantom that resembles the human heart.
The different aspects of this work were supported in part by the National Science Foundation Grant CNS-0932272,. All opinions and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this web page k reflect the views of authors not our sponsors.