Medical applications of robots are increasingly popular to objectivise and speed up the execution of several types of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. Particularly important is a class of diagnostic activities that require physical contact between the robotic tool and the human body, such as palpation examinations and ultrasound scans. The practical application of these techniques can greatly benefit from an accurate estimation of the biomechanical properties of the patient's tissues. In this paper, we evaluate the accuracy and precision of a robotic device used for medical purposes in estimating the elastic parameters of different materials. The measurements are evaluated against a ground truth consisting of a set of expanded foam specimens with different elasticity that are characterised using a high-precision device. The experimental results in terms of precision are comparable with the ground truth and suggest future ambitious developments.

翻译：医疗机器人的应用日益普及，用于实现多种诊断和治疗干预措施的客观化与加速化。其中，需要机器人工具与人体进行物理接触的诊断活动类别尤为重要，例如触诊检查和超声扫描。这些技术的实际应用将极大受益于患者组织生物力学特性的精确估计。本文评估了一种医用机器人装置在估算不同材料弹性参数时的准确性与精密度。测量结果以一组具有不同弹性的膨胀泡沫试样为基准进行验证，这些试样已通过高精度设备完成特性表征。实验结果表明，该装置在精密度方面与基准值相当，并为未来更深入的研究发展提供了可能性。