A soft robotic, bi-directional needle steering system for bronchoscopy
Embargo Date
2027-01-28
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Lung cancer continues to maintain its notorious status as the leading cause of all cancer related deaths worldwide, emphasizing the importance of early screenings, detections, and treatments. Though there has been tremendous progress in the field of interventional bronchoscopy, there is an unmet clinical need to accurately target a tumor to collect a biopsy sample in the lung periphery. Soft robots offer an advantage to traditional bronchoscopes as they are safer, cheaper, and have readily scalable designs. The proposed soft robotic needle steering system for bronchoscopy consists of a millimeter-scale dual-origami bellow system with distal dexterity and robotic control over the tools for biopsy collection in the lung periphery. To fabricate the soft inflatable bellows, we use heat and pressure to selectively bond 2D patterned layers which allows for linear expansion during pressurization. To validate the design of the needle steering system, a series of bench-top experiments to characterize dexterity, blocked force, and tissue puncture capabilities were completed. This robot demonstrated steering capabilities of ≈80º bi-directionally and sufficient force to puncture simulated lung tissue and tumors in various orientations. The needle steering system was integrated with the continuum robot body to construct our fully soft robotic bronchoscope, and a series of in-vitro puncture tests were performed. The robot was able to teleoperatively navigate through the in-vitro lung model to successfully puncture simulated lung tumors.
Description
2025