A Fully Actuated Body-Mounted Robotic Assistant for MRI-Guided Low Back Pain Injection

Gang Li, Niravkumar A. Patel, Weiqiang Liu, Di Wu, Karun Sharma, Kevin Cleary, Jan Fritz, Iulian Iordachita

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This paper reports the development of a fully actuated body-mounted robotic assistant for MRI-guided low back pain injection. The robot is designed with a 4-DOF needle alignment module and a 2-DOF remotely actuated needle driver module. The 6-DOF fully actuated robot can operate inside the scanner bore during imaging; hence, minimizing the need of moving the patient in or out of the scanner during the procedure, and thus potentially reducing the procedure time and streamlining the workflow. The robot is built with a lightweight and compact structure that can be attached directly to the patient's lower back using straps; therefore, attenuating the effect of patient motion by moving with the patient. The novel remote actuation design of the needle driver module with beaded chain transmission can reduce the weight and profile on the patient, as well as minimize the imaging degradation caused by the actuation electronics. The free space positioning accuracy of the system was evaluated with an optical tracking system, demonstrating the mean absolute errors (MAE) of the tip position to be 0.99±0.46 mm and orientation to be 0.99±0.65°. Qualitative imaging quality evaluation was performed± on a human volunteer, revealing minimal visible image degradation that should not affect the procedure. The mounting stability of the system was assessed on a human volunteer, indicating the 3D position variation of target movement with respect to the robot frame to be less than 0.7 mm.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2020
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages5495-5501
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781728173955
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2020
Event2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2020 - Paris, France
Duration: May 31 2020Aug 31 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
ISSN (Print)1050-4729

Conference

Conference2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2020
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityParis
Period5/31/208/31/20

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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