# CPS: Autonomous Attainment of Tissue-Centricity in  Electrosurgery through Data-Driven Persistently Evolving Thermogeometric Adaptivity

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2020 · $337,331

## Abstract

1. The Main Project Objective. Electrosurgery has become the leading surgical technique due to its low
cost, adaptability, and capability for simultaneous cutting and hemostasis. However, at present surgeon
maintains fixed mode and power level, routinely exceeding the required minimum. This gives rise to tissue
 charring, necrosis, and excessive voltage prone to cause injuries. The broad objective of this project is to
mitigate the adverse consequences of a priori fixing mode/power, especially in laparoscopic and robotic
 setting, through enabling a paradigm shift - from surgeon-centric to tissue-centric. The latter consists in
adaptively optimizing the actual operating conditions for maximum tissue benefit, while autonomously
transitioning between modes, instead of holding the preset cut, mixed, or coagulation mode and its power.
2. Specific Aims. To enable the novel paradigm, specific aims consist in 1) developing i) multiscale
control/display-oriented surgically-relevant tissue models through mutually reinforced first-principles and
Al/data-driven formalisms, ii) multimodal software-sensor-based tissue-centric sensing, and iii) multiscale
network adaptive tissue-centric control algorithms; 2) integrating them into a coherent cyber-physical
design paradigm and constructing, on its basis, a multifunctional electrosurgical tool; 3) enabling a
tissue-aware operating surgeon interface via real-time visual tissue status streaming, and 4) extensively
 testing resulting electrosurgical setting on perfused tissue .
 3. Relevance to BIMIT Mission. The project integrates physical, engineering, and life sciences to improve
medical care through developing electrosurgical paradigm for maximum tissue/patient benefit.
4. Research Design and Methods. 1) advance precarbonization sensing both fundamentally and
technically, 2) design and implement a real-time multi-modal (thermal/vision/spectroscopic) sensor array
that characterizes onset of the tissue condition corresponding to each of the modes, 3) in place of a single
 monopolar probe, design and build a fused array of flexible isolated electrodes to form a reconfigurable
multi-arcing spatially-mixed-mode thermogeometric footprint, 4) develop software to aggregate fused
 probe and multi-modal sensor array into a hierarchical evolving structure to deliver the real-time-optimized
thermogeometrically adaptable electrosurgical footprint through closed-loop individual mode
selection /power regulation in each microprobe, 5) develop software for tissue-aware surgeon interface.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10019390
- **Project number:** 5R01EB029766-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Joseph Bentsman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $337,331
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-20 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10019390

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10019390, CPS: Autonomous Attainment of Tissue-Centricity in  Electrosurgery through Data-Driven Persistently Evolving Thermogeometric Adaptivity (5R01EB029766-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10019390. Licensed CC0.

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