Improved precise guidewire delivery of a cardiovascular interventional surgery robot based on admittance control

Purpose The development of cardiovascular interventional surgery robots can realize master–slave interventional operations, which will effectively solve the problem of surgeons being injured by X-ray radiation. The delivery accuracy and safety of interventional instruments such as guidewire are the most important issues in the development of robotic systems. Most of the current control methods are position control or force feedback control, which cannot take into account delivery accuracy and safety. Methods A cardiovascular interventional surgery robotic system integrated force sensors is developed. A novel force/position controller, which includes a radial basis function neural networks-based inner loop position controller and a force-based admittance outer loop controller, is proposed. Furthermore, a series of simulations and vascular model experiments are carried out to demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed controller. Results The designed cardiovascular interventional robot is flexible to enter the target vessel branch. Experimental results indicate that the proposed controller can effectively improve the delivery accuracy of the guidewire and reduce the contact force with the vessel wall. Conclusions The proposed controller based on radial basis function neural network and admittance control is effective in improving delivery accuracy and reducing contact force. The algorithm needs to be further validated in vivo experiments.