A Master-Follower Teleoperation System for Robotic Catheterisation: Design, Characterisation and Tracking Control

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Medical Technology
• Minimally Invasive Surgery

Background:

• Telerobotic systems have advanced minimally invasive surgery over two decades, reducing radiation exposure and enabling remote procedures.
• Enhanced transparency in master-follower systems is crucial for surgeons to perceive force feedback during robotic interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a three-degree-of-freedom master-follower telerobotic system for robotic catheterization.
• To assess the system's performance in mimicking manual catheterization techniques and its path-tracking accuracy.

Main Methods:

• A novel grip-insert-release mechanism was implemented in the follower device to prevent catheter buckling and torsion.
• The system's performance was evaluated using open-loop path tracking on various complex trajectories (circular, infinity-like, spiral).

Main Results:

• The system demonstrated path tracking with Mean Euclidean Error (MEE) ranging from 0.64 to 1.53 cm.
• Mean Absolute Error (MAE) varied between 0.81 and 1.92 cm across different tested paths.

Conclusions:

• The developed telerobotic system achieves target precision and accuracy with an open-loop controller.
• Future work requires closed-loop control to mitigate catheter hysteresis, dead zones, and nonlinearities for improved clinical application.