Background
The mechanical properties of small minimally invasive instruments are limited and thus must be treated as flexible
instruments. Proper functional behavior of these instruments can be significantly enhanced when the instrument is
equipped with a shape sensor to track the path of the flexible instrument. MRI compatible instruments, and thus the
corresponding paths, are long in particular. Therefore, the accuracy of the tip position is stringent.
Approach
We have developed and realized a thin Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) based fiber optical shape sensor. The main
advantages of this fiber optical sensor are its minimum dimensions, the intrinsic MRI compatibility, and the ability of
sensing deformation with submicro-strain accuracy. The shape sensor consists of three fibers, each equipped with
multiple FBG’s, which are integrated physically by gluing and can be positioned inside an flexible instrument. In this
study a critical component analysis and numerical error analysis were performed. To improve performance, a calibration
procedure was developed for the shape sensor.
Results and Conclusion
With current state of the art interrogators it is possible to measure a local deformation with a triplet of FBG sensor very
accurately. At high radii of curvature, the accuracy is dominated by the interrogator, whereas at low radii of curvature,
the position of the fibers is leading.
The results show that position error of a single segment of the shape sensor (outer diameter of 220 μm, a segment length
of 23.5 mm and a minimum bending radius of 30 mm) could be measured with accuracies (3σ) of 100 μm for low radius
of curvature upto 8 μm for high radii of curvature.
© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Citation
M. S. van der Heiden ; K. R. Henken ; L. K. Chen ; B. G. van den Bosch ; R. van den Braber, et al.
"
Accurate and efficient fiber optical shape sensor for MRI compatible minimally invasive instruments
", Proc. SPIE 8550, Optical Systems Design 2012, 85500L (December 18, 2012); doi:10.1117/12.981141; http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.981141
