Design and Analysis of a Compact Mechanism for the Motion of Tendon-Driven Steerable Robotic Guidewires
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Lis, Patrick John
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Abstract
This thesis presents a novel compact guidewire advancement mechanism for micro- scale tendon-driven steerable robotic guidewires. Robotic guidewires allow surgeons to possess greater dexterity in minimally invasive surgeries in order to navigate to areas not attainable through conventional open surgery. Typical minimally invasive surgeries require surgeons to traverse through long, tortuous vasculature with the use of guidewires and/or catheters to reach affected areas. Existing robotic guidewire mechanisms are limited by the range they can reach due to bulky mechanical setups required to advance the guidewire. This thesis details a compact advancement mechanism to combat these limitations by uti- lizing a spooling design to coil up a nitinol-manufactured steerable guidewire with the capability of advancing and retracting guidewires up to 150 cm in length.
The compact guidewire advancement mechanism was integrated with the previously developed COaxially Aligned STeerable (COAST) guidewire prototype. In order for the COAST guidewire to be compliant with the compact advancement mechanism, modifica- tions to the prototype were made to demonstrate smooth follow-the-leader (FTL) motion. With the current modified COAST prototype, the guidewire can produce unidirectional bending while varying the curvature of the bending segment with tubes co-axially aligned within one another. A joint kinematics and static model was developed to accurately char- acterize the mechanism, and account for the friction between the coaxial tubes observed from coiling the wire around the spool. The mechanism’s performance was further eval- uated through various phantom vasculature and ex vivo experiments. Thus, the compact guidewire advancement mechanism was demonstrated to traverse vasculature with differ- ing curvatures while additionally reducing the footprint of the mechanism.
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2022-01-11
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