Through the Eustachian Tube and Beyond: A New Miniature Robotic Endoscope to See Into the Middle Ear. Fichera, L., Dillon, N. P., Zhang, D., Godage, I. S., Siebold, M. A., Hartley, B. I., Noble, J. H., Russell, P. T., Labadie, R. F., & Webster, R. J. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2(3):1488–1494, July, 2017.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
This letter presents a novel miniature robotic endoscope that is small enough to pass through the Eustachian tube and provides visualization of the middle ear (ME). The device features a miniature bending tip previously conceived of as a small-scale robotic wrist that has been adapted to carry and aim a small chip-tip camera and fiber-optic light sources. The motivation for trans-Eustachian tube ME inspection is to provide a natural-orifice-based route to the ME that does not require cutting or lifting the eardrum, as is currently required. In this letter, we first perform an analysis of the ME anatomy and use a computational design optimization platform to derive the kinematic requirements for endoscopic inspection of the ME through the Eustachian tube. Based on these requirements, we fabricate the proposed device and use it to demonstrate the feasibility of ME inspection in an anthropomorphic model, i.e., a 3-D printed ME phantom generated from patient image data. We show that our prototype provides \textgreater 74% visibility coverage of the sinus tympani, a region of the ME crucial for diagnosis, compared to an average of only 6.9% using a straight nonarticulated endoscope through the Eustachian tube.
@article{fichera_through_2017,
	title = {Through the {Eustachian} {Tube} and {Beyond}: {A} {New} {Miniature} {Robotic} {Endoscope} to {See} {Into} the {Middle} {Ear}},
	volume = {2},
	issn = {2377-3766},
	shorttitle = {Through the {Eustachian} {Tube} and {Beyond}},
	doi = {10.1109/LRA.2017.2668468},
	abstract = {This letter presents a novel miniature robotic endoscope that is small enough to pass through the Eustachian tube and provides visualization of the middle ear (ME). The device features a miniature bending tip previously conceived of as a small-scale robotic wrist that has been adapted to carry and aim a small chip-tip camera and fiber-optic light sources. The motivation for trans-Eustachian tube ME inspection is to provide a natural-orifice-based route to the ME that does not require cutting or lifting the eardrum, as is currently required. In this letter, we first perform an analysis of the ME anatomy and use a computational design optimization platform to derive the kinematic requirements for endoscopic inspection of the ME through the Eustachian tube. Based on these requirements, we fabricate the proposed device and use it to demonstrate the feasibility of ME inspection in an anthropomorphic model, i.e., a 3-D printed ME phantom generated from patient image data. We show that our prototype provides {\textgreater} 74\% visibility coverage of the sinus tympani, a region of the ME crucial for diagnosis, compared to an average of only 6.9\% using a straight nonarticulated endoscope through the Eustachian tube.},
	number = {3},
	journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
	author = {Fichera, L. and Dillon, N. P. and Zhang, D. and Godage, I. S. and Siebold, M. A. and Hartley, B. I. and Noble, J. H. and Russell, P. T. and Labadie, R. F. and Webster, R. J.},
	month = jul,
	year = {2017},
	keywords = {3-D printed ME phantom, Computed tomography, Electron tubes, Inspection, Medical Robots and Systems, Robot kinematics, Robots, Visualization, anthropomorphic model, computational design optimization platform, design engineering, ear, endoscopes, endoscopic inspection, fiber-optic light sources, kinematic requirements, medical robotics, middle ear, miniature bending tip, miniature robotic endoscope, nonarticulated endoscope, optimisation, orifice-based route, patient image data, small chip-tip camera, small-scale robotic wrist, steerable catheters/needles, surgical robotics, three-dimensional printing, trans-Eustachian tube ME inspection},
	pages = {1488--1494}
}

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