Abstract
Robotic medical ultrasound can support diagnostics and alleviate fatigues. However, state-of-the-art ultrasound devices are too large and complex for home healthcare. Moreover, organs move in accordance with respiration. This movement changes the ultrasound image pattern and it is difficult for the operator to diagnose easily and accurately. To cope with these problems, the authors newly developed a compact portable ultrasound diagnostic robot for home healthcare, which compensate the organ motion. It can support those who find it difficult to visit a hospital for temporal, spatial, or physical reasons. A robust template matching method to servo the target was applied. Specifically, this robot moves to the target, whose position is detected by finding and identifying the image position of the target in the real-time input images. The authors also applied a multi-threading algorithm with two threads to enhance the real-time performance. One is for image processing with template matching. Another is for robot control to servo the target. Experimental results show that their proposed robot and algorithms can be suppressed to 25.2% motion in pk-to-pk for the periodic phantom organ motion (period of 3 s and of pk-to-pk 40 mm).
Highlights
When compared with computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasonic (US) equipment/devices can provide excellent lower cost alternatives for real-time non-invasive diagnostics and are widely used clinically on site [1, 2]
Hennersperger et al reported that the authors present a set of methods and a workflow to enable autonomous MRI-guided ultrasound acquisitions
Despite the low spatial resolution of structured light scanners, the initial planned acquisition path can be followed with an accuracy of 2.46 ± 0.96 mm [4]
Summary
When compared with computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasonic (US) equipment/devices can provide excellent lower cost alternatives for real-time non-invasive diagnostics and are widely used clinically on site [1, 2]. Research has been highly active in recent years for the development of artificial intelligence, robotic technology, and the support of appropriate image acquisition in US diagnosis [3]. Hennersperger et al reported that the authors present a set of methods and a workflow to enable autonomous MRI-guided ultrasound acquisitions. They proposed a structured-light 3D scanner for patient robot and image-to-patient calibration, which in turn is used to plan 3D ultrasound trajectories. These MRI-based trajectories are followed autonomously by the robot and are further refined online using automatic MRI/US registration. Despite the low spatial resolution of structured light scanners, the initial planned acquisition path can be followed with an accuracy of 2.46 ± 0.96 mm [4]
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