Development and 3D Spatial Calibration of a Parallel Robot for Percutaneous Needle Procedures with 2D Ultrasound Guidance

Robotic systems are being applied to medical interventions as they increase the operational accuracy. The proposed autonomous and ultrasound guided 5-DOF parallel robot can achieve such accuracy for needle biopsies, which particularly demand precise needle positioning and insertion. In this paper, the robot’s mechanical design, system identifications, and the design of its controller are explained. A torque computed controller with gravity compensation and friction models, yielding a 0.678mm RMS position error for the needle tip, was used. A novel method was used for 3D space calibration of the images for detecting the volume of interest in the biopsy procedure by a multipoint crosswire phantom with parallel threads. The calibration technique had a validation RMS error of 0.03mm.