Biomechanics-Based Collaborative Manipulation Method for an Ultrasound-Guided Puncture Robot

Abstract

Percutaneous puncture surgery is commonly used for effective diagnosis and treatment. However, the popular manual manipulation brings in positional unsteadiness which increases the suffering of patients. In this study, a collaborative method is proposed by taking into the surgeon’s skills and the robotic stable operation. In this scheme, a modified compliance controller with a biomechanics-based activation condition is designed. This controller excludes positional undulations resulting from force disturbances. In addition, a breakthrough detector and regulator based on the human force reaction process are advised to repress the positional overshooting deriving from force jump at the moment of tissue breakthrough. This method enhances the manipulating smoothness and suppresses puncture needle overshooting. The overshooting is compensated accordingly by the proposed regulator and surgical risk is lowered. A collaborative puncture robot was constructed. Then, model and animal experiments on this robot verified the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.