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A flexible active needle for steering in soft tissues

Flexible needles that can be steered within soft tissues are a promising approach to reach target locations that are previously inaccessible and to improve the placement accuracy. Promising designs to increase flexibility include the bevel-tipped needles, kinked needles and the recently proposed flexure-based needles, where they attain a fixed curvature when inserted. We developed a flexible active needle, where needle curvature (or deflection) can be controlled by actuators attached to the needle body. Moreover, to further increase the flexibility a flexure element was used to join the needle tip to the rest of the needle body. A prototype of the flexure active needle was developed and demonstrated both in air and tissue-mimicking phantom.