Interactive navigation control with haptic rendering for endovascular treatment

This paper presents a virtual guidance technique for the micro-robot´s reactive navigation in order to increase the precision and the safety of the surgeon gesture in endovascular treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. We describe in particular the active compliant micro-robot that has been developed to improve the endovascular technique. From an analysis of the requirements of a virtual environment dedicated to this technique, we present the proposed approach based on the artificial potential field method for virtual guidance of the micro-robot´s distal extremity. Finally, an algorithm for contact detection between the non-active catheter body and the aortic walls is proposed for haptic rendering synthesis. This approach is based on pre-calculated cartography of the aorta´s inside, in order to minimize the calculation time.