Semi-Autonomous Ultrasound-Guided Robotic System for Percutaneous Intervention

Performing free-hand percutaneous interventions under ultrasound (US) guidance is challenging as it requires coordinated use of both hands and often lacks precision. Robot-assisted percutaneous interventions have been studied extensively to overcome these challenges. However, there is a need for a higher level of autonomy for percutaneous interventions that can aid in accurate needle placement with minimal human intervention. This paper presents a semi-autonomous ultrasound-guided robotic system to precisely target a desired lesion in phantoms. The presented system consists of four modules: (1) a 3D perception module for identifying the scan surface geometry, (2) an ultrasound probe attached to a 7 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) KUKA iiwa7 robot for 3D ultrasound image acquisition, (3) a software framework to autonomously manipulate the ultrasound probe and localize target lesions and, (4) a manually operated needle guide for precise needle placement up to the depth of 100 mm from the surface of the phantom. The targeting accuracy of the presented system is evaluated in phantom studies. Five representative tumors were targeted ten times, giving the targeting error of 4.01 ± 0.49 mm.