A robotic wrist for remote ultrasound imaging

A robotic wrist has been developed for physicians to perform ultrasound imaging on patients located at remote sites. Detailed design, kinematic analysis, prototyping, and preliminary clinical tests of the wrist are reported in this paper. The wrist has certain characteristics which make it novel from mechanical point of view and with respect to its suitability for ultrasound imaging. It is a four degree-of-freedom device and uses parallel mechanisms in its configuration to provide a remote center-of-motion. All four actuators are located on the ground, and each actuator is responsible for one required motion of the ultrasound probe. The wrist has been prototyped. Successful remote ultrasound imaging of kidney and liver has been done on a few volunteers to show the applicability of the proposed device. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.