MRI compatibility evaluation of a piezoelectric actuator system for a neural interventional robot.

The work presented in this paper has been performed in furtherance of developing an MRI-compatible surgical robotic system, specifically targeting the neural intervention procedure for the treatment of Parkinson's Syndrome known as deep brain stimulation (DBS). In this paper we discuss the construction and testing of the MR-compatible controller, sensors and actuators, and the compatibility testing we have done to validate the success of our efforts in eliminating signal interference. Our robotic system was tested on a Phillips Achieva 3 Tesla MRI machine under diagnostic T1 and T2, high speed FGRE and functional EPI imaging protocols. It has been shown to operate without introducing any statistically significant degradation in image quality. We have shown that the creation of an MR-compatible electronically controlled closed-loop robotic actuation system and linkage mechanism can be created successfully within a standard high-field diagnostic magnet with insignificant levels of signal interference.