title: Acoustic window planning for ultrasound acquisition.
abstract: Autonomous robotic ultrasound has recently gained considerable interest, especially for collaborative applications. Existing methods for acquisition trajectory planning are solely based on geometrical considerations, such as the pose of the transducer with respect to the patient surface.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This work aims at establishing acoustic window planning to enable autonomous ultrasound acquisitions of anatomies with restricted acoustic windows, such as the liver or the heart.
  
  
  METHODS
  We propose a fully automatic approach for the planning of acquisition trajectories, which only requires information about the target region as well as existing tomographic imaging data, such as X-ray computed tomography. The framework integrates both geometrical and physics-based constraints to estimate the best ultrasound acquisition trajectories with respect to the available acoustic windows. We evaluate the developed method using virtual planning scenarios based on real patient data as well as for real robotic ultrasound acquisitions on a tissue-mimicking phantom.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The proposed method yields superior image quality in comparison with a naive planning approach, while maintaining the necessary coverage of the target.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We demonstrate that by taking image formation properties into account acquisition planning methods can outperform naive plannings. Furthermore, we show the need for such planning techniques, since naive approaches are not sufficient as they do not take the expected image quality into account.
authors.affiliation: Computer Aided Medical Procedures, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany. r.goebl@tum.de.
authors.forename: Rüdiger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Göbl
authors.affiliation: Computer Aided Medical Procedures, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Virga
authors.affiliation: Computer Aided Medical Procedures, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rackerseder
authors.affiliation: Computer Aided Medical Procedures, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Frisch
authors.affiliation: Computer Aided Medical Procedures, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany.|Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Nassir
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Navab
authors.affiliation: Computer Aided Medical Procedures, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hennersperger
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012371:Robotics; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Automatic acquisitions; Planning framework; Robotic imaging; Sonography; Ultrasonic imaging