Section: Research Program

Real Time Patient-Specific Computational Models

The principal objective of this challenge is to improve, at the numerical level, the efficiency, robustness, and quality of the simulations (see Fig. 2). To reach these goals, we will investigate novel finite element techniques able to cope with complex, potentially ill-defined input data. After developing Smoothed FEM for real-time simulations, we are developing meshless techniques and immersed boundary methods. The first one is also well suited for topological changes, which we sometimes need to account for in our simulations. The second is expected to lead to more stable, and numerically efficient, formulations of the finite element method.

We will also propose numerical techniques such as domain decomposition and model order reduction, to handle real-time computation on more complex geometries or constitutive models. Boundary conditions are know to also play an important role in the solution of such problems. Therefore we are developing solutions to both identify and model the interactions that take place between the structure of interest and its anatomical environment.

Figure 2. (a) Simulation of needle insertion in a liver; (b) Using dynamic mesh refinement scheme driven by error estimate; (c) Visual depiction. The simulation runs at 22 Hz using a PC with 4 GHz CPU.