Endovascular Navigation System Using Robotic Ultrasound

Supervision: Christoph Hennersperger, Salvatore Virga Prof. Dr. Nassir Navab

If you're interested: Please get in touch with Christoph Hennersperger, such that we can give you a more detailed overview of the project, and also show you our lab environment and running projects at our chair.

Abstract

Robotic ultrasound systems provide the possible automation of various interventional procedures, and such systems can be used for both diagnostic and therapeutic imaging. By using an ultrasound probe attached to a robotic system, the position and orientation of different objects can be detected and followed automatically. This aim of this work is to explore the potential of a robotic ultrasound platform in combination with such techniques to allow for catheter tracking and navigation in an endovascular interventional setting.

Tasks

The goal of this work is to explore the viability of a robotic ultrasound system for endovascular catheter navigation. The work will be developed on the foundation of an existing robotic ultrasound platform developed by our chair. The project aims to integrate the following aspects:

• Tracking of catheters using 2D and 3D ultrasound imaging.
• Calibration of ultrasound probe images with respect to existing interventional images (patient registration).
• Navigation of ultrasound probe using a lightweight robotic arm to provide real-time feedback about the catheter position.

Requirements

Interested students should have good knowledge in C++. Basic knowledge about medical imaging (e.g. Ultrasound, CT, MRI) and robotic systems (e.g. the ROS framework) is beneficial.

Project environment

The project is located both in the interdisciplinary research laboratory at Klinikum rechts der Isar (http://campar.in.tum.de/Chair/IFL), as well as at the Chair for Computer Aided Medical Procedures in Garching. Interested students will be immersed in our collaborative team working on robotic ultrasound imaging, and the focus of the work can be adjusted to the specific scientific interests of the student.

Literature

• [1] Navab, Nassir, Christoph Hennersperger, Benjamin Frisch, Bernhard Fuerst. "Personalized, Relevance-based Multimodal Robotic Imaging and Augmented Reality for Computer Assisted Interventions." Medical Image Analysis (2016).
• [2] Chatelain, Pierre, Alexandre Krupa, and Maud Marchal. "Real-time needle detection and tracking using a visually servoed 3D ultrasound probe." Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013 IEEE International Conference on. IEEE, 2013.

Detailed project description