A novel sensing system of catheter/guidewire operation for vascular interventional surgery

Recently, robotics and computing technology plays an increasing important role in the evolution of modern vascular interventional surgery (VIS). During operation procedure, thrust force and torque that surgeon applied to catheter is one of the most significant information for statistical analysis of surgery procedure and robotic assisting surgery system. Online precision detection of catheter thrust force and torque with minimized interference to surgeon is a critical issue. A novel sensing device is proposed to detect catheter operation force during surgery operation. Based on strain gauge principle and elegant structure design of elastic component, the proposed sensing device achieves trust force detection and torque detection simultaneously with a compact structure. The experimental equipment is developed for calibration and evaluation of the proposed sensing device. It can be seen from experimental results that the maximum torque and force detecting error of designed force/torque sensing device are 3.2 mN·m and 1.237N respectively. The maximum relative torque and force detecting error are 15.238% and 14.56%. The average error of torque and force detecting are 0.455mN·m and 0.0278N. The average relation error of torque and force detection are 2.13% and 0.327% respectively. The root-mean-square error of torque and force detection are 0.164mN.m and 0.267N. It indicates that the proposed catheter operation force detection device is rational.