Snaking Its Way into Your Heart

Boston Children's Hospital bioengineers have developed catheter guided by artificial intelligence that can self-navigate inside a simulated beating heart. Bioengineers at Boston Children's Hospital have developed a catheter driven by artificial intelligence (AI) that can self-navigate inside a simulated beating heart. The proof-of-concept research offers the eventual promise of a significant advance in robotic surgery, given that the catheter is completely autonomous. "Robotics has been and still is investigated for the navigation of instruments such as guide wires and catheters," says Sylvain Martel, director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory of Polytechnique Montréal, a leading Canadian engineering educational and research institutions. "But what differentiates this work is the level of integration of AI to achieve full autonomy."