Image-guided control of a robot for medical ultrasound

A robot-assisted system for medical diagnostic ultrasound has been developed by the authors. The paper presents the visual servo controller used in this system. While the ultrasound transducer is positioned by a robot, the operator, the robot controller, and an ultrasound image processor have shared control over its motion. Ultrasound image features that can be selected by the operator are recognized and tracked by a variety of techniques. Based on feature tracking, ultrasound image servoing in three axes has been incorporated in the interface and can be enabled to automatically compensate, through robot motions, unwanted motions in the plane of the ultrasound beam. The accuracy of the system is illustrated through a 3-D reconstruction of an ultrasound phantom. An Internet-based robot-assisted teleultrasound system has also been demonstrated.

[1]  Peter I. Corke,et al.  A tutorial on visual servo control , 1996, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[2]  Vincenzo Gemignani,et al.  A real time contour tracking system to investigate the cross-sectional area changes of the aorta , 2000, Computers in Cardiology 2000. Vol.27 (Cat. 00CH37163).

[3]  Wen-Hong Zhu,et al.  Image-guided control of a robot for medical ultrasound , 2002, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[4]  Wen-Hong Zhu,et al.  A user interface for robot-assisted diagnostic ultrasound , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[5]  H. Vanderpool,et al.  Prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome and other work-related musculoskeletal problems in cardiac sonographers. , 1993, Journal of occupational medicine. : official publication of the Industrial Medical Association.

[6]  Wen-Hong Zhu,et al.  Robot-Assisted Diagnostic Ultrasound - Design and Feasibility Experiments , 1999, MICCAI.

[7]  G. Hamarneh,et al.  Implementation and comparison of four different boundary detection algorithms for quantitative ultrasonic measurements of the human carotid artery , 1997, Computers in Cardiology 1997.

[8]  Jesse S. Jin,et al.  Morphological image analysis of left-ventricular endocardial borders in 2D echocardiograms , 1996, Medical Imaging.

[9]  Michael F. Insana,et al.  Ultrasonic strain imaging in media with pulsatile flow , 2001, SPIE Medical Imaging.

[10]  Max A. Viergever,et al.  A survey of medical image registration , 1998, Medical Image Anal..

[11]  Lisa M. Brown,et al.  A survey of image registration techniques , 1992, CSUR.

[12]  P.N.T. Wells,et al.  The MIDSTEP system for ultrasound guided remote telesurgery , 1998, Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Vol.20 Biomedical Engineering Towards the Year 2000 and Beyond (Cat. No.98CH36286).

[13]  Anthony J. Yezzi,et al.  A geometric snake model for segmentation of medical imagery , 1997, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[14]  Etienne Dombre,et al.  HIPPOCRATE: an intrinsically safe robot for medical applications , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Innovations in Theory, Practice and Applications (Cat. No.98CH36190).

[15]  Y. Bar-Shalom.  Tracking and data association , 1988 .

[16]  P. Marche,et al.  A new robotic mechanism for medical application , 1999, 1999 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (Cat. No.99TH8399).

[17]  Robert O. Rainer,et al.  Architecture for a high-performance tele-ultrasound system , 1996, Medical Imaging.

[18]  Ryutarou Ohbuchi,et al.  Incremental volume reconstruction and rendering for 3-D ultrasound imaging , 1992, Other Conferences.

[19]  Wen-Hong Zhu,et al.  Visual servoing for robot-assisted diagnostic ultrasound , 2000, Proceedings of the 22nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (Cat. No.00CH37143).

[20]  Chung-Ming Chen,et al.  New ultrasound image-segmentation algorithm based on an early vision model and discrete snake model , 1998, Medical Imaging.

[21]  D. Adam,et al.  Automatic ventricular cavity boundary detection from sequential ultrasound images using simulated annealing. , 1989, IEEE transactions on medical imaging.

[22]  Richard W. Prager,et al.  Sequential 3D diagnostic ultrasound using the Stradx system , 1999 .

[23]  Yee-Hong Yang,et al.  Multiresolution texture segmentation with application to diagnostic ultrasound images , 1993, IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging.

[24]  A.J. van de Goor,et al.  Real-time frame-to-frame automatic contour detection on echocardiograms , 1994, Computers in Cardiology 1994.

[25]  Andrew H. Gee,et al.  Non-planar Reslicing for Freehand 3D Ultrasound , 1999, MICCAI.

[26]  H. Broman,et al.  A model-based procedure for fully automated boundary detection and 3D reconstruction from 2D echocardiograms , 1994, Computers in Cardiology 1994.

[27]  Wen-Hong Zhu,et al.  A Robot System for Medical Ultrasound , 2000 .

[28]  Sylvie Boudet,et al.  An integrated robotics and medical control device to quantify atheromatous plaques: experiments on the arteries of a patient , 1997, Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robot and Systems. Innovative Robotics for Real-World Applications. IROS '97.

[29]  Purang Abolmaesumi,et al.  Real-time extraction of carotid artery contours from ultrasound images , 2000, Proceedings 13th IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems. CBMS 2000.

[30]  M. Demi,et al.  Real-Time Implementation of a New Contour Tracking Procedure in a Multi-Processor DSP System , 2000 .

[31]  Kunihiro Chihara,et al.  Case Report: Tele-Echo System: A Real-Time Telemedicine System Using Medical Ultrasound Image Sequence , 2000 .

[32]  Alfred C. Weaver,et al.  Design and implementation of a digital teleultrasound system for real-time remote diagnosis , 1995, Proceedings Eighth IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems.

[33]  Wen-Hong Zhu,et al.  Motion/force/image control of a diagnostic ultrasound robot , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[34]  Robert Rohling,et al.  Automatic calibration for 3-D free-hand ultrasound , 1997 .

[35]  T Okai,et al.  Development of an ultrasonic system for three-dimensional reconstruction of the fetus , 1989, Journal of perinatal medicine.

[36]  Max Mignotte,et al.  Deformable template and distribution mixture-based data modeling for the endocardial contour tracking in an echographic sequence , 1999, Proceedings. 1999 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (Cat. No PR00149).

[37]  Etienne Dombre,et al.  Hippocrate: a safe robot arm for medical applications with force feedback , 1999, Medical Image Anal..

[38]  Michael Unser,et al.  Model-based boundary detection in echocardiography using dynamic programming technique , 1991, Medical Imaging.