Subcutaneous needle, catheter and electrode insertion is one of the most common minimally invasive procedures [1].
Needle placement error can be categorized as intrinsic and extrinsic ones. For intrinsic ones, needle deflection due to tissue-needle interaction causes the deviation of needle tip from the target. Intra- and post-operative edema induces implanted seed drift for procedures like brachytherapy. For extrinsic errors, perturbations are caused by patient move-ment, respiratory motion, and external surgical tool caused tissue deformation (e.g. ultrasound probe), etc. To compen-sate these errors is one of the major motivations of deploying active needle steering. The proposed needle driver is capable of steering bevel tip needle and active cannula while with a clinical application on prostate brachytherapy.
Early MRI-guided prostate robots focus on manual ac-tuation. There is active work being developed in the area