Dynamic Simulation of Blood Flow Effects on Flexible Manipulators During Intra-Cardiac Procedures on the Beating Heart

In this paper, we develop a numerical mixed flexible-rigid body model to take into account the effects of the external disturbances acting on a flexible manipulator secondary to the oscillatory transmitral blood flow in the left ventricle. The manipulator is made of a flexible rubber-like material to further extend the surgical robotic-based catheters’ degrees of freedom and steer-ability in beating-heart prosthetic aortic valve implantation procedure. Along with the developed numerical model, a detailed description of the catheter’s mechanical architecture and the actuation system is also provided. Necessity of employing such a model for the designed system is clearly justified using simulation studies.