Motion planning for flexible needle in multilayer tissue environment with obstacles

Flexible needle with bevel tip offers greater mobility for puncture surgery. This would expand the scope of the puncture surgery. However, motion planning for flexible needle is still a challenge due to its non-holonomic property and the complicated interactions with soft tissues. In this paper, a multilayer tissue model is constructed to simulate human tissue, and a dynamic programming is employed to plan the motion of flexible needle in the multilayer environment. In order to improve the security of the puncture process, the obstacles are fuzzed up. Then, an optimal algorithm is developed to determine a more suitable puncture angle. In addition, to deal with more complex environment, we develop a reverse algorithm to confirm the entry point in line with the target. Finally, we take some simulations to verify the proposed algorithms, and analyze the results.