We present a novel approach for minimally invasive flexible needle manipulations by pairing a real-time finite element simulator with the cross-entropy method. Additionally, we demonstrate how a kinematic-driven bang-bang controller can complement the control framework for better tracking performance. We show how electromagnetic (EM) tracking can be readily incorporated into the framework to provide controller feedback. Tissue phantom experiment with EM tracking shows the average targeting error is $0.16 \pm 0.29mm$.

翻译：本文提出了一种新颖的微创柔性针操控方法，该方法通过将实时有限元仿真器与交叉熵方法相结合来实现。此外，我们展示了如何利用运动学驱动的Bang-Bang控制器来补充该控制框架，以获得更好的跟踪性能。我们还说明了如何将电磁跟踪技术轻松集成到该框架中，以提供控制器反馈。采用电磁跟踪的组织体模实验表明，平均靶向误差为$0.16 \pm 0.29mm$。