Shape Tracking and Feedback Control of Cardiac Catheter Using MRI-Guided Robotic Platform—Validation With Pulmonary Vein Isolation Simulator in MRI

Cardiac electrophysiology is an effective treatment for atrial fibrillation, in which a long, steerable catheter inserted into the heart chamber to conduct radio frequency ablation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide enhanced intraoperative monitoring of ablation progress as well localization position. However, accurate and real-time tracking shape its efficient manipulation under MRI remains challenging. In this article, we designed system that integrates multicore fiber Bragg grating (FBG) coils with standard cardiac catheter. Both positional bendable section could be achieved. A learning-based modeling method developed catheters, uses FBG-reconstructed three-dimensional curvatures model initialization. The proposed was implemented on MRI-guided robotic platform achieve feedback control performance experimentally verified, demonstrating 2.33° average error each sensing segment 1.53 mm accuracy at tip. tested by autonomous targeting path following (average deviation 0.62 mm) tasks. overall integrated validated pulmonary vein isolation simulator ex-vivo tissue ablation, employed left phantom pulsatile liquid flow. Catheter tests were conducted scanner, capability MRI.