A simulation and training environment for robotic radiosurgery

Objective: To provide a software environment for simulation of robotic radiosurgery, particularly to study the effective robot workspace with respect to the treatment plan quality, and to illustrate the concepts of robotic radiosurgery. Materials and methods: A simulation environment for a robotic radiosurgery system was developed using Java and Java3D. The kinematics and the beam characteristics were modeled and linked to a treatment planning module. Simulations of different robot workspace parameters for two example radiosurgical patient cases were performed using the novel software tool. The first case was an intracranial lesion near the left inner ear, the second case was a spinal lesion. Results: The planning parameters for both cases were visualized with the novel simulation environment. An incremental extension of the robot workspace had limited effect for the intracranial case, where the original workspace already covered the left side of the patient. For the spinal case, a larger workspace resulted in a noticeable improvement in plan quality and a large portion of the beams being delivered from the extended workspace. Conclusion: The new software environment is useful to simulate and analyze parameters and configurations for robotic radiosurgery. An enlarged robot workspace may result in improved plan quality depending on the location of the target region.