Design and characterization of a novel needle insertion tool

Abstract

Robotized assistance has been developing constantly in interventional radiology. The recent availability of several commercial systems for treatment planning and needle automatic positioning has even boosted this development. In this paper, we focus on the design of a device dedicated to needle manipulation, a function not included in the available systems. This device is a tool which could be adapted to existing robots, in order to enable them to grasp and insert needles. It is compact and mostly built from polymer parts to cope with the constraints of X-Ray imaging. Each subsystem of the device is separately presented and the system is assessed in order to characterize needle insertion, force measurement, and grasping capabilities.