Image space controlled manual catheter

Inventors

Sganga, Jake Anthony • Bell, David James

Assignees

Remedy Robotics Inc

Abstract

A steerable catheter system includes a steerable catheter including a handle and a steerable elongated body. The handle includes user inputs for image space control commands for articulating the elongated body with respect to a plane of a medical image. The elongated body includes pose determination features that allow determination of a roll angle of the elongated body. The system also includes a control unit that receives the image space control commands, determines the roll angle of the elongated body based on the pose determination features, translates the image space control commands into pullwire commands based on the roll angle, and transmits the pullwire commands to the steerable catheter, whereby the elongated body is articulated according to the pullwire commands.

Core Innovation

The invention controls a manually-controllable steerable catheter by using image-space control user inputs provided with respect to a two-dimensional imaging plane of a two-dimensional image displayed to a user. The image space control user inputs comprise an in-plane input command to adjust a heading of the steerable catheter within the plane of a medical image and an out-of-plane input command to adjust an incline of the steerable catheter into or out of the plane of the medical image. The user inputs are received from the user via one or more user inputs on a handle of the steerable catheter.

The image space control user inputs are transmitted to a processor configured to translate the image space control user inputs to pullwire commands configured to cause articulation of the steerable catheter according to the image space control user inputs. The translation is based on a roll angle of a distal portion of the steerable catheter. The translated pullwire commands are received at the steerable catheter, and one or more motors of the steerable catheter are actuated according to the pullwire commands.

Motor actuation causes one or more pullwires of the steerable catheter to articulate the distal portion to achieve motion that corresponds with the image space control user inputs. The roll angle is determined in the context of pose determination features, including radio-opaque fiducials configured to support determining the roll angle from a two-dimensional appearance of the fiducials in a medical image showing the distal portion. The pose determination features can include an electromagnetic sensor or a Fiber Bragg grating sensor.

Claims Coverage

The independent claims cover two method formulations. Across the independent claims, the main inventive features are image-space user inputs in a 2D imaging plane, translation to pullwire commands based on a distal roll angle, and motor actuation to articulate the catheter distal portion to correspond with the image-space inputs.

The claim coverage is centered on controlling a manually-controllable steerable catheter using image-space heading and incline user inputs in a two-dimensional imaging plane, translating those inputs into pullwire commands using a roll angle of a distal portion, and actuating motors to articulate the pullwires so distal motion corresponds with the image-space user inputs.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications