Robust path planning for flexible needle insertion using Markov decision processes

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Medical Device Technology
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Flexible needles offer minimally invasive navigation to treatment regions.
• Accurate steering is challenging due to complex tissue-needle interactions and uncertainties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel Markov decision process (MDP) based planning method for robust flexible needle navigation.
• To enhance the reliability of flexible needle steering in complex and uncertain environments.

Main Methods:

• The method addresses soft tissue deformation, target pattern-induced penetration failures, and motion uncertainties.
• It utilizes MDPs to develop a secure control policy for flexible needle steering.

Main Results:

• Computer simulations and phantom experiments demonstrated robust planning and secure control policies.
• The proposed method showed higher accuracy and success rates in obstacle avoidance compared to traditional MDP methods.
• Future work includes in vivo experiments with biological tissues.

Conclusions:

• The developed robust path planning method enables secure flexible needle steering in soft tissues.
• The approach demonstrates high adaptability in computer simulations for medical applications.