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An accessible, hands-on tutorial system for image-guided therapy and medical robotics using a robot and open-source software

Pace, Danielle F., Kikinis, Ron, Hata, Nobuhiko
Kitware Inc
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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1926/567
New: Prefer using the following doi: https://doi.org/10.54294/ovqsl0
Submitted by Danielle Pace on 2007-07-01T00:00:00Z.

This paper describes a new open-source tutorial for image-guided therapy (IGT) and medical robotics that is both accessible and hands-on using the LEGO Mindstorms NXT (a commercially available robotics kit) and 3D Slicer (an open-source application for medical image processing). The tutorial covers all stages of a typical IGT or medical robotics procedure, including the concepts of imaging, preoperative planning, targeting and tracking, navigation and registration, by using the LEGO robot to perform a “needle biopsy” on a phantom (anatomical model) made of traditional LEGO pieces. In addition, this paper describes a C++ library that allows direct control of a LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot from a Linux computer over a USB connection.