Development of a precision clinical plasma treatment system using environmental sensing and robotic controls.

In the context of clinical treatment of cancers, a major challenge involves the precise delivery of therapeutic agents to the tumor while limiting off-target effects. This is true for multiple treatment modalities including radiotherapy and non-thermal plasma (NTP) therapy. Hence, the main focus of this research project is to introduce the design of a supervisory control structure into a patient-in-the-loop therapeutic application. This system will be developed by integrating 3 components: 1) environmental sensors, 2) a robotic control unit, and 3) a therapeutic device (NTP generator). Since NTP treatment is highly dependent on parameters such as treatment time, application distance, etc. a feedback approach is necessary to compensate for tumor motion induced by the patient during treatment (e.g. respiration). To this end, artificial intelligence tools, including neural networks, will be employed to model the dynamic disturbances of the tumor. The developed self-learning artificial intelligence models will be embedded within model-based controllers to predict and minimize the effect of disturbances. Performance of the control structure will be validated with real-time experiments of plasma delivery in biological systems. The proposed methodology has the potential to improve the precision and accuracy of clinical NTP treatment and consequently minimize damage to healthy tissue.

Keywords:ROBOTIC SYSTEM, CANCER THERAPY, CONTROL MEDICINE, PLASMA

Disciplines:Physics of gases, plasmas and electric discharges not elsewhere classified, Robotics and automatic control, Automation, feedback control and robotics, Cancer therapy