In percutaneous interventions for hepatic tumor treatment, organ motion caused by respiration can lead to inaccurate needle placement hence less effective therapeutic and diagnostic outcome. The aim of this project is to design and build a prototype of a soft robotic phantom that mimics respiratory motion of the liver for needle insertion procedures.
For this purpose, a soft actuated diaphragm will be designed which can replicate various motion profiles of the diaphragm, such that respiration patterns of multiple different patients can be simulated. Focus will lie on replicating realistic motion profiles in anterior-posterior, cranial-caudal and left-right directions while possibly taking into account small rotations as well. The system needs to be usable within an MRI machine, thus material choice and size constraints need to be taken into account for this design.
Next to that, it is desired that the device can be used not only by engineers and by researchers at the Robotics and Mechatronics group at the University of Twente, but also that it can be used by clinicians at a hospital without the need of engineers to help. An easy user interface to use the device is therefore desired.