The development of needles, needle–insertion simulators, and needle-wielding robots for
use in a clinical environment depends on a thorough understanding of the mechanics of …

Alignment errors can arise during needle tip placement in deep-seated tissue structures.
This can lead to undesired diagnostic and therapeutic outcomes. Path correction by means …

The tip asymmetry of a bevel-tip needle results in the needle naturally bending when it is
inserted into soft tissue. This enables robotic needle steering, which can be used in medical …

During needle-based procedures, transitions between tissue layers often lead to rupture
events that involve large forces and tissue deformations and produce uncontrollable crack …

Percutaneous needle insertion is amongst the most prevalent clinical procedures. The
effectiveness of needle-base interventions heavily relies on needle targeting accuracy …

We develop a new motion planning algorithm for a variant of a Dubins car with binary
left/right steering and apply it to steerable needles, a new class of flexible bevel-tip medical …

The asymmetry of a bevel-tip needle results in the needle naturally bending when it is
inserted into soft tissue. As a first step toward modeling the mechanics of deflection of the …

This chapter describes how advances in needle design, modeling, planning, and image
guidance make it possible to steer flexible needles from outside the body to reach specified …

We introduce a method for task-oriented design of concentric tube robots, which are tentacle-
like robots with the potential to enable new minimally invasive surgical procedures. Our …

The mechanical interaction between the surgical tools and the target soft tissue is mainly
dictated by the fracture toughness of the tissue in several medical procedures, such as …