Trajectory planning for surgical suture

Hello everybody,

I am supposed to simulate the trajectory of a needle during surgical stitching for a surgical robot.

1. Several parameters like the starting point, orientation and needle type will be provided via a gui

2. The skin will be at first represented by a simple plane.

3. There are two "hands" represented by simple dots

4. One of the hands is holding and moving the curved surgical needle

Now to my questions:

a) Are there any special toolboxes/ methods etc. for trajectory planning in matlab?

b) How would I plot the needle so that it can be moved around? The needles look like this google image surgical needle

[Dhruvesh Patel]

I am not clear about two things in your question:

1) Do you wish to plan the trajectory of the manipulator (hands) which hold the needle or you wish to plan the trajectory of just the needle ? I am not clear on this because in point (4), you have stated that the hands are simple dots.

2) In the beginning of the question you have mentioned that you wish to 'simulate' the trajectory of a needle but in your question (a) you are looking for methods for 'planning' the trajectory of the needle. These, according to me are two different problem classes all together. Simulating the motion, given the starting and ending point would require more of interpolation and visualization since there would be no constraints. Planning, on the other hand would take in constrains and objectives into consideration and would give an optimal trajectory in some sense.

Can you clarify if you are looking to simulate the motion or you wish to plan the trajectory.

[Fat Bos]

Hi Dhruvesh, thank you for your reply.

I want to plan the trajectory of the hands (rather tongs) so that I get a function that maps time to coordinates. Then this trajectory should be visualized in a 3d animation.