Compact Design of a Hydraulic Driving Robot for Intra-operative MRI-guided Bilateral Stereotactic Neurosurgery

Abstract

In this letter, we present an intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided robot for bilateral stereotactic procedures. Its compact design enables robot's operation within the constrained space of standard imaging head coil. magnetic resonance (MR) safe and high-performance hydraulic transmissions are incorporated. A maximum stiffness coefficient of 24.35 N/mm can be achieved with transmission fluid preloaded at 2 bar. Sufficient targeting accuracy (average within ≤1.73 mm) has been demonstrated in a simulated needle insertion task of deep brain stimulation. A novel MR-based wireless tracking technique is adopted. It is capable of offering real-time and continuous (30-40 Hz) three-dimensional (3-D) localization of robotic instrument under the proper MR tracking sequence. It outperforms the conventional method of using low-contrast passive fiducials that can only be revealed in the MR image domain. Two wireless tracking units/markers are integrated with the robot, which are two miniaturized coil circuits in size of 1.5 × 5 × 0.2 mm3, fabricated on flexible thin films. A navigation test was performed under the standard MRI settings in order to visualize the 3-D localization of the robotic instrument. MRI compatibility test was also carried out to prove the minimal interference to MR images of the presented hydraulic robotic platform.