PhD Defence Ana Cordon Avila | Robotic compensation of respiratory motion and dynamic image generation

Robotic compensation of respiratory motion and dynamic image generation

Ana Cordon Avila is a PhD student in the department Electrical Engineering. (Co)Promotors are dr.ir. M. Abayazid and prof.dr.ir. S. Stramigioli from the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS), University of Twente.

Respiratory motion management is an essential component of minimally invasive procedures for thoracic and abdominal tumors. During percutaneous procedures, physicians often rely on haptic feedback from the instrument and a mental representation of three-dimensional anatomical structures. However, respiratory-induced organ motion can change the position of the lesion, making accurate needle positioning challenging. Surrogate-driven motion models can provide continuous intraoperative guidance to clinicians and be integrated with robotic systems to compensate for respiratory motion and reduce procedural complexity. 

This thesis focuses on advancing motion management strategies for respiratory-induced liver motion during robotic-assisted percutaneous procedures. The thesis is organized into three parts. Part I focuses on estimating respiratory-induced liver motion using surrogate signals, including novel non-contact or readily available surrogates and multi-surrogate approaches to improve correspondence model performance. Part II focuses on patient-specific dynamic MRI generation using optical tracking and model-based approaches for different breathing patterns. The methods are evaluated through objective assessments and a subjective evaluation by clinical experts. Part III focuses on integrating robotic systems with model-based techniques and surrogate signals for hepatic percutaneous procedures, exploring different autonomy levels, ranging from fully autonomous systems to 3D teleoperated frameworks.

The work presented across these parts has the potential to reduce the clinician’s cognitive load and radiation exposure, as well as narrow the performance gap between novice and expert clinicians.