Elongate Medical Instrument Orientation Registration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Minimally invasive medical procedures face challenges in accurately navigating and orienting steerable instruments within anatomical spaces due to limitations in imaging modalities and kinematic models, which often require recalibration and lack real-time precision.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize kinematic models and localization sensors to track and adjust the orientation of elongate medical instruments relative to both instrument and localization coordinate reference frames, allowing for precise registration and navigation by moving the instrument between straight and curved positions, with electromechanical autoretraction and user interface assistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If imaging modalities such as radiography, fluoroscopy, and ultrasound are used to determine instrument location and orientation, then real-time visualization is provided, but multiplanar imaging is not convenient or accurate enough to facilitate real-time navigation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional imaging-based navigation (radiography, fluoroscopy, ultrasound) with a mechanical/kinematic model-based system. Localization sensors track the actual position and orientation of the elongate instrument, and a kinematic model computes the instrument's configuration based on steering element positions. This substitution eliminates the need for complex multiplanar imaging while providing accurate real-time navigation data.
2Ease of operation
If kinematic models are used to understand instrument positions and orientations, then navigation is facilitated, but compliance, control mechanism slack, and repositioning lead to the need for recalibration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by continuously comparing the instrument position predicted by the kinematic model with the actual position measured by localization sensors. The system calculates orientation differences between the two coordinate reference frames and uses this feedback to minimize discrepancies, thereby maintaining model accuracy despite compliance, slack, or repositioning events.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-calibration by automatically detecting and correcting orientation differences between the kinematic model and actual sensor data. The processor continuously adjusts the instrument coordinate reference frame orientation to minimize the difference between determined orientations, allowing the system to self-correct without external intervention.
3Measurement precision
If the instrument coordinate reference frame orientation is adjusted to minimize orientation differences, then registration accuracy is improved, but additional processing and calibration steps are required
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically performs the coordinate frame orientation adjustment by computing the difference between kinematic model orientations and sensor-measured orientations, then self-corrects by rotating the instrument coordinate reference frame to minimize this difference. This self-service approach improves registration accuracy without requiring manual intervention or complex external calibration procedures.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables accurate and intuitive navigation of medical instruments within anatomical spaces, improving the precision and reliability of minimally invasive procedures by minimizing orientation differences between kinematic and localization data, thus enhancing real-time positioning and orientation accuracy.
Implementation Method 1
The one or more localization sensors may be magnetic field based localization sensors
Implementation Method 2
The one or more localization sensors may be potential difference based localization sensors
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and method are disclosed whereby elongate medical instruments may be registered to adjacent tissue structures and other structures, and may be navigated and operated in a coordinated fashion to maximize ranges of motion, ease of use, and other factors. A method for registering an instrument relative to nearby structures may comprise moving a portion of the instrument between two in situ positions, tracking movement during this movement with both a kinematic model and also a localization sensor based configuration, determining the orientation of the tracked portion relative to both the instrument coordinate system used in the kinematic modeling and also a localization coordinate reference frame, and adjusting the orientation of the instrument coordinate reference frame to minimize the difference between determined orientations using the kinematic model and localization sensors. Methods and configurations for navigating coupled and registered instrument sets are also disclosed.