Main content blocks

Head of Group

Prof Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena

B415C Bessemer Building

South Kensington Campus

 

About us

The MIM Lab develops robotic and mechatronics surgical systems for a variety of procedures.

Research lab info

What we do

The Mechatronics in Medicine Laboratory develops robotic and mechatronics surgical systems for a variety of procedures including neuro, cardiovascular, orthopaedic surgeries, and colonoscopies. Examples include bio-inspired catheters that can navigate along complex paths within the brain (such as EDEN2020), soft robots to explore endoluminal anatomies (such as the colon), and virtual reality solutions to support surgeons during knee replacement surgeries.

Why it is important?

...

How can it benefit patients?

......

Meet the team

Mr Zejian Cui

Mr Zejian Cui

Mr Zejian Cui
Research Assistant

Mr Spyridon Souipas

Mr Spyridon Souipas

Mr Spyridon Souipas
Casual - Other work

Ms Emilia Zari

Ms Emilia Zari

Ms Emilia Zari
Research Postgraduate

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Jianu:2024:10.1109/TMRB.2024.3421256,
author = {Jianu, T and Huang, B and Nhat, Vu M and Abdelaziz, MEMK and Fichera, S and Lee, CY and Berthet-Rayne, P and Rodriguez, y Baena F and Nguyen, A},
doi = {10.1109/TMRB.2024.3421256},
journal = {IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics},
pages = {971--979},
title = {CathSim: An Open-Source Simulator for Endovascular Intervention},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TMRB.2024.3421256},
volume = {6},
year = {2024}
}

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB - Autonomous robots in endovascular operations have the potential to navigate circulatory systems safely and reliably while decreasing the susceptibility to human errors. However, there are numerous challenges involved with the process of training such robots, such as long training duration and safety issues arising from the interaction between the catheter and the aorta. Recently, endovascular simulators have been employed for medical training but generally do not conform to autonomous catheterization due to the lack of standardization and RL framework compliance. Furthermore, most current simulators are closed-source, which hinders the collaborative development of safe and reliable autonomous systems through shared learning and community-driven enhancements. In this work, we introduce CathSim, an open-source simulation environment that accelerates the development of machine learning algorithms for autonomous endovascular navigation. We first simulate the high-fidelity catheter and aorta with a state-of-the-art endovascular robot. We then provide the capability of real-time force sensing between the catheter and the aorta in simulation. Furthermore, we validate our simulator by conducting two different catheterization tasks using two popular reinforcement learning algorithms, namely SAC and PPO. The experimental results show that our open-source simulator can mimic the behavior of real-world endovascular robots and facilitate the development of different autonomous catheterization tasks. Our simulator is publicly available at https://github.com/airvlab/cathsim.
AU - Jianu,T
AU - Huang,B
AU - Nhat,Vu M
AU - Abdelaziz,MEMK
AU - Fichera,S
AU - Lee,CY
AU - Berthet-Rayne,P
AU - Rodriguez,y Baena F
AU - Nguyen,A
DO - 10.1109/TMRB.2024.3421256
EP - 979
PY - 2024///
SP - 971
TI - CathSim: An Open-Source Simulator for Endovascular Intervention
T2 - IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TMRB.2024.3421256
VL - 6
ER -

Contact Us

General enquiries
hamlyn@imperial.ac.uk

Facility enquiries
hamlyn.facility@imperial.ac.uk


The Hamlyn Centre
Bessemer Building
South Kensington Campus
Imperial College
London, SW7 2AZ
Map location