Characteristics evaluation of the novel robotic catheter system

In this paper, a novel robotic catheter system was proposed, which can be used to assist surgeon to do the operation of vascular interventional surgery (VIS), the robotic catheter system can measure the contact force and friction between catheter and blood vessel, we used load cell to measure the friction between catheter and blood vessel, the friction can be transmitted to the operator´s hand as feedback force, and this method was not paid attention in the past research, furthermore, we used an optical fiber force sensor to measure the contact force between catheter tip and blood vessel, the contact force information can be transmitted to the operator as visual information in real time. Meanwhile, the optical fiber force sensor is through inside the catheter as a guide wire, which is served to lead catheter forward. We did the simulation experiment (“In Vitro”) by using endovascular evaluator (EVE), the experimental results indicated that the developed robotic catheter system works well, and they can effectively assist surgeon to do the operation and improve safety during VIS.