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This content will become publicly available on July 9, 2026

Title: Medical needles in the hands of AI: Advancing toward autonomous robotic navigation
Safely and accurately navigating needles percutaneously or endoscopically to sites deep within the body is essential for many medical procedures, from biopsies to localized drug deliveries to tumor ablations. The advent of image guidance decades ago gave physicians information about the patient’s anatomy. We are now entering the era of AI (artificial intelligence) guidance, where AI can automatically analyze images, identify targets and obstacles, compute safe trajectories, and autonomously navigate a needle to a site with unprecedented accuracy and precision. We survey recent advances in the building blocks of AI guidance for medical needle deployment robots (perceiving anatomy, planning motions, perceiving instrument state, and performing motions) and discuss research opportunities to maximize the benefits of AI guidance for patient care.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2008475 2038855
PAR ID:
10637885
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Science Robotics
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Science Robotics
Volume:
10
Issue:
104
ISSN:
2470-9476
Page Range / eLocation ID:
eadt1874
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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