Towards Steering a High-Dose Rate Brachytherapy Needle with a Robotic Steerable Stylet

• Published in: IEEE transactions on medical robotics and bionics Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 1
• Main Authors: Deaton, Nancy J., Brumfiel, Timothy A., Sheft, Maxina, Yamamoto, Kent blackK, Elliott, Drew, Patel, Pretesh, Desai, Jaydev P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.02.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Adaptation models; Adaptive control; Adaptive systems; Bending; Brachytherapy; Control methods; Deflection; Dosage; Dynamic response; Intermetallic compounds; Joints (anatomy); medical robotics; Model reference adaptive control; Needles; Nickel titanides; Proportional integral derivative; Radiation therapy; Robots; steerable needles; Steering; Tendons
• ISSN: 2576-3202; 2576-3202
• DOI: 10.1109/TMRB.2023.3237861

Steerable needles are desired for many applications within the medical field. One such application is high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy. In this paper, an adaptive control system is proposed to provide control of the planar bending angle or deflection distance of a tendon-driven continuum joint, which can be inserted as the stylet in a commercial hollow needle for HDR brachytherapy. Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers are a common method of control. However, significant tuning may be required to achieve the desired dynamic response, and the tuned gains may not achieve the desired response in a different environment or if the system model varies. Steerable needles must navigate through tissues of differing viscoelastic properties and the use of nitinol for the joint and tendons of a steerable needle leads to change in the system parameters due to change in the phase of the nitinol material. In this article, we propose the real-time adaptation of PID gains using model reference adaptive control techniques to control the planar bending angle or deflection distance of a steerable stylet and needle system.