Distributed proprioception for safe autonomous catheters

The interaction between flexible instrument bodies and surrounding deformable lumens is intrinsically complex and hard to oversee if not explicitly measured. This project identifies and integrates optimal sensing technology for real-time proprioception along the deformable body. This project includes real time shape estimation based on optical measurements such as FBGs or relying on electromagnetic (EM) tracking. It explores new sensing methods such as electrical impedance tomography (EIT) or algorithms that estimate the contact location and amplitude of the interaction force based on the acquired shape estimates. Automatic calibration and registration techniques will be developed, so that resulting techniques may be employed ‘out of the box’ requiring minimal effort and tuning prior to deployment.