<title>CT-directed robotic biopsy testbed: motivation and concept</title>

Abstract

As a demonstration platform, we are developing a robotic biopsy testbed incorporating a mobile CT scanner, a small needle driver robot, and an optical localizer. This testbed will be used to compare robotically assisted biopsy to the current manual technique, and allow us to investigate software architectures for integrating multiple medical devices. This is a collaboration between engineers and physicians from three universities and a commercial vendor. In this paper we describe the CT-directed biopsy technique, review some other biopsy systems including passive and semi- autonomous devices, describe our testbed components, and present our software architecture. This testbed is a first step in developing the image-guided, robotically assisted, physician directed, biopsy systems of the future.