Virtual Catheter Mapping for Atrial Fibrillation

Project description

Electroanatomic mapping of atrial fibrillation (AF) relies on catheters whose geometry, electrode spacing, filtering, and physical contact strongly influence the voltage and activation signals seen clinically. This project aims to digitally (virtually) replicate real clinical mapping catheters inside a computational heart model. Students will reconstruct the catheter’s electrode layout, dimensions, and directional sensitivity, and implement its electrical characteristics (bipolar/unipolar filtering, electrode size, inter-electrode spacing). The catheter will then be placed inside a 2D or 3D AF simulation generated using models such as Courtemanche or Aliev–Panfilov. The project will compare:

• Ground truth voltage/activation from the simulated tissue versus
• Catheter-recorded signals (synthetic unipolar/bipolar EGMs, LAT, voltage, phase) The aim is to understand how specific catheter properties affect voltage amplitude, LAT measurement error, rotor detection, and mapping of AF complexity in a realistic clinical setting.

Outcome: A high-fidelity in-silico clone of clinical catheters, plus a systematic evaluation of how catheter design impacts AF mapping accuracy. This work directly informs catheter interpretation in clinical settings and supports collaborations with industry partners (e.g., Abbott) and our broader digital twin mapping program.

Assumed knowledge

Programming, signal processing

Supervisors research focus

Computational cardiology, signal processing, data science, machine learning

Note: You need to register interest in projects from different supervisors (not a number of projects with the one supervisor).
You must also contact each supervisor directly to discuss both the project details and your suitability to undertake the project.