title: Endocavity Ultrasound Probe Manipulators.
abstract: We developed two similar structure manipulators for medical endocavity ultrasound probes with 3 and 4 degrees of freedom (DoF). These robots allow scanning with ultrasound for 3-D imaging and enable robot-assisted image-guided procedures. Both robots use remote center of motion kinematics, characteristic of medical robots. The 4-DoF robot provides unrestricted manipulation of the endocavity probe. With the 3-DoF robot the insertion motion of the probe must be adjusted manually, but the device is simpler and may also be used to manipulate external-body probes. The robots enabled a novel surgical approach of using intraoperative image-based navigation during robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP), performed with concurrent use of two robotic systems (Tandem, T-RALP). Thus far, a clinical trial for evaluation of safety and feasibility has been performed successfully on 46 patients. This paper describes the architecture and design of the robots, the two prototypes, control features related to safety, preclinical experiments, and the T-RALP procedure.
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stoianovici
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Chunwoo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schäfer
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Chien-Ming
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Yihe
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zuo
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Doru
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Petrisor
authors.affiliation: Urology Robotics Laboratory, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA.
authors.forename: Misop
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Han
keywords: Image guide; medical robot; prostatectomy; remote center of motion (RCM); transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) probe; ultrasound