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AuTonomous intraLuminAl Surgery

Project description

Robotics-assisted intraluminal surgery

Intraluminal endoscopic surgeries exploit body lumens to reach specific tissues in an attempt to offer a minimally invasive procedure with faster recovery. However, there are surgical risks that stem from the encountered anatomy and lack of reliable assistive tools. The EU-funded ATLAS project aims to train young researchers in surgical robotics and techniques that will allow them to automatise complex intraluminal surgeries. This will render the entire process less prone to human error. Moreover, the project will make advances in surgical instruments and sensors and produce a real-time anatomy modelling approach to assist the intraluminal surgical procedure.

Objective

In modern surgery body lumens increasingly serve as access route to deeply located anatomic regions. Navigation through narrow and mostly fragile and deformable lumens requires considerable skill, dexterity and consequently imposes a large mental load. Visualization is notoriously poor. Due to phenomena such as slack, backlash and compliance the controllability of the instruments is bad. Surgeons undergo steep learning curves and even experienced surgeons often lack confidence about their gestures. Surgical risks including internal bleeding, tissue damage, puncture or rupture are imminent.

ATLAS will produce a generation of European researchers that will develop robotic skills and techniques to automate complex surgical intraluminal therapies. Due to physiological phenomena or the surgical action the anatomy changes considerably, reducing the value of pre-operative data and imaging. Compliant instruments must be employed to navigate through lumens. As they proceed they deform and undergo complex and distributed contacts with the fragile environment. Step changes in intra-operative and distributed sensing, real-time modeling and 3D reconstruction, decision-making, intra-operative planning and autonomous control will be made to deal with the extreme variability that is encountered.

Whereas assistive technology for steering flexible endoscopes, ureteroscopes, colonoscopes, guidewires and vascular catheters has been notoriously disparate and incoherent, ATLAS will develop and train researchers in identifying and exploiting the commonalities amongst these cases. This generalization will lead to a rigorous unified framework and guidelines to deploy assistive techniques tailored to each specific therapy. The ATLAS consortium consists of Europe’s leading institutes in the field of surgery automation and design and control of flexible instruments. It is backed up by a broad set of clinical and industrial partners that are eager to get involved in subsequent exploitation.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-ITN - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN)

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018

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Coordinator

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 768 960,00
Address
OUDE MARKT 13
3000 Leuven
Belgium

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Region
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 768 960,00

Participants (6)

Partners (14)

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