Navigation of remotely actuable medical device using control variable and length
A method of navigating a medical device includes determining the location of a medical device at a point in an operating region in a subject's body, the medical device being responsive to at least one control variable to assume a desired configuration includes storing information representative of the at least one control variable being applied to the medical device at the point, and more preferably storing information representative of the at least one control variable and the device length.
1 . A method of characterizing a surface in an operating region in a subject's body using a magnetically navigable device, the method comprising:
navigating a magnetically navigable device by applying a magnetic field to the device and changing the free length of the device to bring the device into contact with a point on the surface;
recording the point by storing information representative of the magnetic field applied to the device and the free length of the device to cause the device to contact the surface at the point; and
repeating steps (a) and (b) for a plurality of points on the surface.
2 . The method according to claim 1 comprising using a computational model of the device and the stored information representative of the magnetic field applied to the device and the free length of the device for each of the plurality of points to render the surface.
3 . The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of using a computational model of the magnetically navigable device and the stored information representative of the magnetic field applied to the magnetically navigable device to determine the locations of the points, and displaying an image of the points.
4 . A method of automatically characterizing a surface in an operating region
in a subject's body using a magnetically navigable device, the method comprising:
automatically navigating a magnetically navigable device by applying a magnetic field to the device to bring the device into contact with a plurality of points in predetermined relation on the surface; and
recording each point by storing information representative of the magnetic field applied to the device to cause it to contact the surface at the point.
5 . The method according to claim 4 wherein the step of automatically navigating includes adjusting the free length of the medical device, and wherein the step of recording each point includes the step of recording the free length of the magnetically navigable device at each point.
6 . The method according to claim 5 wherein the information representative of the magnetic field applied to the magnetically navigable device includes the magnetic field direction.
7 . The method according to claim 5 wherein the magnetic field is applied with at least one external source magnetic, and wherein information representative of the magnetic field applied to the magnetically navigable device includes the position of the at least one magnet.
8 . The method according to claim 5 wherein the magnetic field is applied with at least one external source magnetic, and wherein information representative of the magnetic field applied to the magnetically navigable device includes the orientation of the at least one magnet.
9 . The method according to claim 5 wherein the magnetic field is applied with at least one external source magnet, and wherein information representative of the magnetic field applied to the magnetically navigable device includes the position and orientation of the at least one magnet.
10 . The method according to claim 5 wherein the magnetic field is applied with at least one electromagnet, and wherein information representative of the magnetic field applied to the magnetically navigable device includes the current supplied to the at least one electromagnet.
11 . A method of characterizing a surface in an operating region in a subject's body using a remotely navigable device, the device being responsive to at least one control variable to assume a desired configuration, the method comprising:
(a) navigating a remotely navigable device by applying a control variable to the device to bring the device into contact with a point on the surface;
(b) recording the point by storing information representative of the at least one control variable applied to the device to cause it to contact the surface at the point; and
repeating steps (a) and (b) for a plurality of points on the surface.
12 . The method according to claim 11 further comprising recording the free length of the medical device responsive to the control variable at each point.
13 . The method according to claim 12 further comprising using a computational model of the device to determine the location of each point based upon the control variable being applied to the remotely orientable medical device at a point and information representative of the free length of the remotely orientable device at the point; and displaying a plurality of the points to represent the surface.
14 . A method of automatically characterizing a surface in an operating region in a subject's body using a remotely magnetically navigable device, the medical device being responsive to at least one control variable to assume a desired configuration, the method comprising:
automatically navigating a remotely navigable device by applying at least one control variable to the device to bring the device into contact with a plurality of points in predetermined relation on the surface;
recording each point by storing information representative of the at least one control variable applied to the device to cause it to contact the surface at the point.
15 . The method according to claim 14 wherein the step of automatically navigating includes adjusting the free length of the medical device, and wherein the step of recording each point includes the step of recording the free length of the remotely navigable device at each point.
16 . The method according to claim 12 further comprising the step of storing information representative of the free length of the medical device when the device was at the selected point, and using the stored information representative of the free length to change the free length of the medical device to return the medical device to the selected point.