Dynamic Programming and Stochastic Control
Dynamic Programming and Stochastic Control
A Workcell for the Development of Robot-Assisted Surgical Procedures
Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems
P3VI: a partitioned, prioritized, parallel value iterator
ICML '04 Proceedings of the twenty-first international conference on Machine learning
Prioritization Methods for Accelerating MDP Solvers
The Journal of Machine Learning Research
Nonholonomic Modeling of Needle Steering
International Journal of Robotics Research
Modeling of tool-tissue interactions for computer-based surgical simulation: A literature review
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments
Needle insertion parameter optimization for Brachytherapy
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
A Hybrid Control Approach for Non-invasive Medical Robotic Systems
Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems
Image-Guided Robotic Flexible Needle Steering
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
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This paper presents a new 2D motion planner for steering flexible needles inside relatively rigid tissue. This approach uses a nonholonomic system approach, which models tissue-needle interaction, and formulates the problem as a Markov Decision Process that is solvable using infinite horizon Dynamic Programming. Unlike conventional numerical solvers such as the value iterator which inherently suffers from the curse of dimensionality for processing large-scale models, partitioned-based solvers show promising numerical performance. Given the locations of the obstacles and the targeted area, the proposed solver provides a descent solution where high spatial or angular resolution is required. As theoretically expected, it is shown how prioritized partitioning increases computational performance compared to the generic value iteration which has been used in an existing steering approach. Starting from any initial condition in the workspace, this method enables the needle to reach its target and avoid collisions with obstacles through selecting the shortest path with the least number of turning points thereby causing less trauma. In this paper, emphasis is given to the control aspects of the problem rather than to biomedical issues. Experimental results using an artificial phantom show that the method is capable of positioning the needle tip at the targeted area with an acceptable level of accuracy.