A High-Precision Positioning and Force Sensing Robotic System for Multi-Instrument Manipulation During Robot-Assisted Endovascular Intervention

Robotic-assisted endovascular interventions have shown great potential to protect surgeons from prolonged X-ray exposure and improve the precision and outcomes of interventions. However, existing interventional robots remain limited in treating complex coronary lesions due to the lack of multi-instrument manipulation and high-precision force sensing and feedback. In this paper, a novel multi-instrument robotic system with integrated force sensing for complex endovascular interventions was developed and validated. The manipulation mechanism was designed to mimic surgeon’s fingers motions, achieving independently decoupled linear and rotational control to replicate natural manual operation. Additionally, a high-precision force sensing mechanism which is suitable for the multi-instrument delivery mechanism based on the lever amplification principle was proposed. This method can significantly reduce the length of the force transmission path and the impact of friction and inertial force, thereby enhancing the detection sensitivity of subtle vessel-tool interaction force during robot-assisted endovascular intervention. Furthermore, to address the issue of uncontrollable clamping force leading to instruments slippage and damage, a multi-roller adaptive clamping sensing mechanism based on series elastic actuation was designed and analyzed. Finally, several evaluation experiments were performed to validate that the precision and performance of the developed robotic system.