A Robotic Platform for Digitalized Pulse Information Collection

Different types of pulse collection equipment have been developing for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and its pulse diagnosis. However, pulse diagnosis instrument still cannot meet the actual needs of clinical use. This paper designs a digitalized pulse information collection platform, which ensures the efficient acquisition of pulse information with high accuracy, reliability, and completeness of data in the practical application. The device is designed with four degrees of freedom for linear movement in three directions of X (translation), Y (lift), and Z (forward and backward) and z-axis (roll) rotation. It uses the image localization model and three-dimensional reconstruction algorithm to output the acquisition position and pressing direction with success rate of 93%. In-dependent three-point Series Elastic Actuator (SEA) is designed to adapt to the special shape of wrist realizing the “three fingers in parallel” in TCM. It implements the finger pressure for 10 levels from 50gf to 200gf with the force control accuracy within ±2.5gf. The device was applied in a cohort pulse data study of 3,036 subjects, and 2,800 pulse data were collected, with a usable rate of 92.2%.