Intelligent Robotic Tools and Telepresence Environment for Off-Pump (Beating Heart) Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery

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This project will develop intelligent robotic tools and a telepresence environment for performing off-pump coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. In this context, off-pump CABG surgery means that the surgery is done while heart is still beating instead of using a cardiopulmonary bypass machine and stopping the heart to perform heart surgery. Although on-pump open heart surgery has been refined over the last 30 years and is now a common and successful procedure it remains highly invasive and fraught with potential complications. Due to the complications resulting from using cardiopulmonary bypass machine, performing CABG off-pump is highly desirable. However, off-pump CABG surgery can be potentially performed for only a small proportion (~10%) of all CABG surgeries due to technological limitations. Use of intelligent robotics technology promises an alternative and superior way of performing off-pump CABG surgery. The intelligent telerobotic tools that will be developed in this project will actively track and cancel the relative motion between the surgical instruments and the heart by Active Relative Motion Cancelling (ARMC), allowing CABG surgeries to be performed on a beating heart with technical perfection equal to traditional on pump procedures. A major focus of the research will be on developing complementary sensing systems, and algorithms for intelligent and model based fusing of information supplied form different systems for superior performance, and model based confidence evaluation to detect and handle variations in heart rhythm and arrythmias. The sensory systems that will be studied include sonomicrometry, vision, whisker, force/torque, and MEMS based inertia sensors.