Comprehensive Telerobotic Ultrasound System for Abdominal Imaging: Development and in-vivo Feasibility Study

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the lives of healthcare professionals are at significant threat because of the enormous workload and cross-infection risk. Ultrasound (US) imaging plays a vital role in the diagnosis and follow-up of COVID-19 patients; however, it requires a close-physical contact by the sonographer. In this context, this paper presents a Telerobotic Ultrasound (TR-US) system for complete remote control of the US probe, thereby preventing direct physical contact between patients and sonographers. The system consists of a 6-DOF robot arm at the remote site and a haptic device at the doctor’s site. The control architecture precisely transmits the intended position and orientation of the US probe to the remote location for transversal and sagittal plane scanning. This architecture, when integrated with an admittance controller-based force modulation and feedback transmission, enables the radiologists to obtain high-quality images for diagnosis. The advantages and effectiveness of the system are demonstrated by conducting in-vivo feasibility study at AIIMS, Delhi, for imaging abdomen organs (liver, spleen, kidneys, bladders). The system provides image quality equivalent to a manually-guided probe, can identify various pathology and reports high acceptability among volunteers and doctors from a questionnaire survey.