Deformation-as-control for a biologically inspired steerable needle

STING, a biologically inspired steerable needle robot, has the potential to improve diagnostic and drug delivery therapies in neurosurgery. Real-time path planning for steerable needles remains challenging due to complex kinematic constraints and tissue deformation. Inspired by deformation theory, this paper introduces a “deformation-as-control” method for transforming non-linear path planning problems into linear formulations. Both theoretical analysis and simulations in two-and three-dimensional space confirm that the method is fast, robust, smooth and accurate. As a result, it can be used for real-time control of steerable needles to overcome tissue deformation, as well as being easily adaptable to other continuum style or nonholonomic robots.