College of Engineering and Built Environment
PhD Scholarship 2015 Project
Lead supervisor name &
contact details:
Research Centre / Institute
Name and Website (if
applicable)
Name: Dr. Graham Gavin
Tel: 01 4023952
Email : graham.gavin@dit.ie
Environmental Sustainability and Health Institute
Scholarship Details
The stipend is €10,000 per annum. The cost of EU academic
fee will be covered for the duration of the scholarship. NonEU applicants are eligible to take up the scholarships, but
they will be required to fund the fee differential. Schools will
make available a desk space, PC along with a modest bursary
for travel, conferences and some limited materials.
Subject Area
Medical Devices
Title of the Project
An experimental and numerical investigation into high
frequency mechanical vibrating cannula for improved tissue
targeting in robotic surgical applications
Project Abstract (max 300 words)
The use of needles, cannula and guidewires is commonplace in surgical intervention. Beyond
well-known applications, long cannulas are used in procedures such as biopsies, electrode
placement and in brachytherapy, where radioactive seeds are placed at the tumour site. There
has been significant interest in surgical robotics and automated systems that can guide cannula
to a target location. The potential benefits of this approach include improved targeting,
repeatability and integration with imaging data. These procedures critically require the accurate
placement of cannula but suffer from a number of limitations The forces developed when the
cannula penetrates and inserts into the hyper-elastic tissue, result in large tissue deflections
relative to the accuracy trying to be achieved and offsets pre-acquired image data. In practice,
this may result in biopsy samples being taken from the wrong location or brachytherapy seeds
being incorrectly positioned for example. This project proposes an experimental and numerical
programme to determine to what extent cannula activated with high frequency (greater 20kHz)
mechanical vibrations reduce penetration and friction forces during automated tissue insertion;
and to assess the resulting effects on overall tissue targeting and accuracy. It is envisaged that
this approach would significantly improve the accuracy achieved with surgical robotic cannula
insertion.
Please indicate the student requirements for this project
min. 2.1 in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent
Deadline to submit
applications (only for funded
projects)
6th November 2015