Soft Robotic Delivery of Coiled Anchors for Cardiac Interventions

Area of Science:

• Medical Robotics
• Cardiovascular Interventions
• Minimally Invasive Surgery

Background:

• Trans-catheter cardiac interventions offer alternatives to open-heart surgery for high-risk patients.
• Current catheter-based systems lack the dexterity and force control for complex intracardiac tasks.
• Anchor coil implantation is a crucial but challenging minimally invasive procedure.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a robotic platform designed for precise anchor coil delivery during minimally invasive cardiac procedures.
• To model and validate the platform's kineto-static performance.
• To assess the platform's capability in delivering multiple anchor coils accurately.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel robotic platform for anchor coil delivery.
• Kineto-static modeling to predict and analyze platform motion and forces.
• In-vitro testing using a motile simulator to evaluate delivery accuracy.

Main Results:

• The robotic platform demonstrated low positional error in its kineto-static model.
• Successful multi-anchor coil delivery was achieved against a motile in-vitro simulator.
• Delivery accuracy was within millimeter-level precision.

Conclusions:

• The developed robotic platform enhances dexterity for minimally invasive intracardiac procedures.
• This technology shows significant potential for improving the safety and efficacy of device implantation.
• The platform's precision offers a promising solution for complex trans-catheter interventions.