Design of a Master-Slave Robotic System for Intravascular Catheterization during Cardiac Interventions

Recently, applications of robotic device is showing greater advances in surgery. While robotic catheterization has been embraced to reduce the operational challenges (radiation and orthopedic hazards) inherent with percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs), robot-based cardiac interventions are still limited to very few clinical centers in the world. In this paper, the development and application of a robotic PCI system for intravascular catheterization is presented. The robotic system is setup with underactuated master-and-slave devices and a direct control model designed based on mapping unit scales of the master displacement to trigger the slave robot for intravascular catheterization. To validate the robotic system, in-vitro trials are observed in a human-like silicone-based vascular pathway with aortic stenosis. The master-slave robotic system was successfully used to cannulate the stenotic vascular pathway with guidewire and catheter. Thus, it can be suitably adapted for intravascular catheterization during PCI and related cardiac interventions.