Automated pointing of cardiac imaging catheters

Intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) catheters enable high-quality ultrasound imaging within the heart, but their use in guiding procedures is limited due to the difficulty of manually pointing them at structures of interest. This paper presents the design and testing of a catheter steering model for robotic control of commercial ICE catheters. The four actuated degrees of freedom (4-DOF) are two catheter handle knobs to produce bi-directional bending in combination with rotation and translation of the handle. An extra degree of freedom in the system allows the imaging plane (dependent on orientation) to be directed at an object of interest. A closed form solution for forward and inverse kinematics enables control of the catheter tip position and the imaging plane orientation. The proposed algorithms were validated with a robotic test bed using electromagnetic sensor tracking of the catheter tip. The ability to automatically acquire imaging targets in the heart may improve the efficiency and effectiveness of intracardiac catheter interventions by allowing visualization of soft tissue structures that are not visible using standard fluoroscopic guidance. Although the system has been developed and tested for manipulating ICE catheters, the methods described here are applicable to any long thin tendon-driven tool (with single or bi-directional bending) requiring accurate tip position and orientation control.