Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

National projects

ADT (Aide au Développement Technologique, Inria) - DynMesh

The objectives of this ADT are the coupling of SOFA, the physical simulation platform supported by Inria, and CGoGN, the mesh management library developed within the ICube lab at Strasbourg. It aims at extending the physical engine SOFA with the topological kernel of CGoGN that supports a wide variety of mesh and many local remeshing operations. The coupling of both software libraries will provide users of physical engines with new tools for the development of simulations involving topological changes like cutting, fracturing, adaptation of the resolution or improving contact management or collision detection. The impacts are numerous and will be operated directly within the MIMESIS Team, with our partners or through the establishment of new collaborations.

ADT - Sofa

SOFA Large Scale Development Initiative (ADT) : the SOFA project is an international, multi-institution, collaborative initiative, aimed at developing a flexible and open source framework for interactive simulations. This will eventually establish new grounds for a widely usable standard system for long-term research and product prototyping, ultimately shared by academic and industrial sites. The SOFA project involves 4 Inria teams: ASCLEPIOS, DEFROST, IMAGINE and MIMESIS. The development program of the ADT started in 2007. This ADT ended in September 2015 and the associated contract of our SOFA engineer Marc Legendre ended at the same time.

ADT - SofaOR

In December 2014, a new ADT national initiative started. The objective of this ADT is twofold: first, we aim at achieving a level of quality and robustness compatible with IEC 62304 for the core of SOFA and a reduced set of components. This does not include the certification of the code itself, but rather the implementation of a comprehensive development process that will enable the certification by companies wishing to integrate this code into their systems. The second objective is to add new features specific to the needs of using intra-operative guiding tools: interoperability with equipment from the operating room, acquisition and real-time processing of full HD video streams, data assimilation and predictive filters, path planning, visualization for augmented reality, or user interfaces dedicated to the operating room.

ANR - IDEFI

In the IDEFI ANR, the MIMESIS team is involved in the EVEREST project which aims to develop a new generation on-line training platforms, dedicated to the theory and practice of image-guided minimally invasive surgery. A central objective is to develop a framework for the integration and the rapid spread of numerical interactive simulation systems, associated with online assessment methodologies. The IHU Strasbourg is the ANR project leader and we collaborate on the topic of virtual simulations.

ANR - RESET

At the end of 2014, the team has been awarded a new ANR project: RESET. This project started in March 2015. Its objective is to develop a high-fidelity training system for retinal surgery. Retina surgery is an increasingly performed procedure for the treatment of a wide spectrum of retinal pathologies. Yet, as most micro-surgical techniques, it requires long training periods before being mastered. This simulator is built upon our scientific expertise in the field of real-time simulation, and our success story for technology transfer in the field of cataract surgery simulation (MSICS simulation developed for the HelpMeSee foundation).

IDEX - CNRS

The aim of the project CONECT (Couplage de la rObotique et de la simulatioN mEdicale pour des proCédures auTomatisées) is to develop a robotic system for needle insertion in deformable tissues which is entirely controlled and driven by a numerical simulation. The results of this work could be extremely beneficial for medical applications, such as brachytherapy or biopsy, given the accuracy and the precision required in this kind of procedures. A first demonstration is currently under development where the needle will be inserted in a silicone gel samples. Given a non-straight predefined trajectory, our goal is to control a Mitsubishi MRV1 robot that will automatically insert a needle along the predefined path, taking into account the deformation of both the environment and the needle. The deformation of the gel is tracked with camera using the Optitrack system. The simulation is based on real time finite element models. Based on inverse simulations, we are developing a control model that provides the kinematics of the robot such that the needle remains on the trajectory during the insertion. The activities carried out already allowed a first publication at IROS (2015) "Haptic Rendering of Hyperelastic Models with Friction" and the presentation of a poster at the conference DD23 in South Korea in july 2015 "Domain Decomposition for FE Simulation for Needle Insertion".

REBOAsim, Department of Defense USA

REBOA stands for Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta. The objective of the REBOAsim project is to develop a low-cost miniaturized tracking and haptic interface for catheters and guidewires, meeting requirements for training and intraoperative guidance of Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (and other catheterization procedures). The second aspect of the project is the development of a computer-based simulation of REBOA procedures, allowing the training of medical personnel. This project was accepted in late 2015. In this context, we collaborate with the American Department of Defense.

IHU, Strasbourg

Our team has been selected to be part of the IHU of Strasbourg. This institute, for which funding (67M€) has just been announced, is a very strong innovative project of research dedicated to future surgery of the abdomen. It will be dedicated to minimally invasive therapies, guided by image and simulation. Based on interdisciplinary expertise of academic partners and strong industry partnerships, the IHU aims at involving several specialized groups for doing research and developments towards hybrid surgery (gesture of the surgeon and simulation-based guidance). Our group and SOFA have a important place in the project. Since September 2011 a part of our team is located within the IHU, to develop a number of activities in close collaboration with clinicians.