The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Weave program supports international research collaborations that bring together complementary expertise across borders. For the newly funded project, the DBE will receive CHF 386,000, while the research partners in Goslar will receive CHF 320,000.

The funded research is a spin-off of the MIRACLE project. With the goal of developing technologies for precise navigation and control during surgery, a team led by Philippe Cattin has explored ways of measuring the shape and position of flexible instruments such as endoscopes with high accuracy using fiber-optic shape sensors.

These thin optical fibers can detect bending through changes in the light travelling through them. However, the signal is also affected by factors such as temperature and polarization, making it difficult to determine precisely how much of the change is caused by bending. The researchers will combine optical simulations, experiments and deep learning to better understand these effects and distinguish bending from other influences.

The goal is to develop optimized sensors that can provide precise, reliable shape information independent of temperature. In the longer term, such technology could contribute to the next generation of flexible medical instruments and improve the ability to track and control them inside the human body.