Sang Eun Song1, Nathan Bongjoon Cho1,
Iulian Iordachita2, Gregory Scott Fischer3, Junichi
Tokuda4, Nobuhito Hata4, Gabor Fichtinger5,
Clare Tempany4
1Engineering Research Center, The Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; 2Department of
Mechanical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United
States; 3Mechanical Engineering Department, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, Worchester, MA, United States; 4Brigham and Womens
Hospital, Boston, MA, United States; 5School of Computing,,
Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
As
accurate needle positioning helps the prostate cancer detection and
treatment, a number of MRI-compatible robots have been introduced. However,
problems exist due to the strong magnetic field and limited workspace.
Pneumatic actuator has the minimum distraction in the environment. However,
it has poor controllability. To overcome the controllability problem, a
simple external damping mechanism that can enhance accuracy was developed.
Based on the actuator mechanism and workflow optimized modular design
approaches, a new pneumatically actuated 4-DOF parallel robot for MRI-guided
prostate intervention was developed. A preliminary evaluation was conducted
with satisfying actuator average position error of 0.2mm.