Maternal health remains a pervasive challenge in developing and underdeveloped countries. Inadequate access to basic antenatal Ultrasound (US) examinations, limited resources such as primary health services and infrastructure, and lack of skilled healthcare professionals are the major concerns. To improve the quality of maternal care, robot-assisted antenatal US systems with teleoperable and autonomous capabilities were introduced. However, the existing teleoperation systems rely on standard video stream-based approaches that are constrained by limited immersion and scene awareness. Also, there is no prior work on autonomous antenatal robotic US systems that automate standardized scanning protocols. To that end, this paper introduces a novel Virtual Reality (VR) platform for robotic antenatal ultrasound, which enables sonologists to control a robotic arm over a wired network. The effectiveness of the system is enhanced by providing a reconstructed 3D view of the environment and immersing the user in a VR space. Also, the system facilitates a better understanding of the anatomical surfaces to perform pragmatic scans using 3D models. Further, the proposed robotic system also has autonomous capabilities; under the supervision of the sonologist, it can perform the standard six-step approach for obstetric US scanning recommended by the ISUOG. Using a 23-week fetal phantom, the proposed system was demonstrated to technology and academia experts at MEDICA 2022 as a part of the KUKA Innovation Award. The positive feedback from them supports the feasibility of the system. It also gave an insight into the improvisations to be carried out to make it a clinically viable system.

翻译：孕产妇健康在发展中国家和欠发达国家仍是一项普遍挑战。基础产前超声检查普及不足、基层卫生服务和基础设施等资源有限、以及缺乏熟练医疗专业人员是主要问题。为改善孕产妇护理质量，具有远程操作和自主能力的机器人辅助产前超声系统被引入。然而，现有远程操作系统依赖基于标准视频流的方法，受限于有限的沉浸感和场景感知能力。此外，目前尚无能够自动化标准化扫描流程的自主产前机器人超声系统先例研究。为此，本文介绍一种新颖的用于机器人产前超声的虚拟现实平台，使超声医师能够通过有线网络控制机械臂。系统通过提供环境的重建三维视图，并将用户沉浸于虚拟现实空间，增强了系统效能。同时，该系统利用三维模型促进对解剖表面的更好理解，从而执行实用扫描。此外，所提出的机器人系统还具备自主能力；在超声医师监督下，系统可执行国际妇产科超声学会推荐的标准六步产科超声扫描流程。通过使用23周胎儿体模，该系统作为KUKA创新奖的一部分在MEDICA 2022上向技术与学术界专家进行了展示。来自专家们的积极反馈证实了该系统的可行性，同时也为使其成为临床可行系统指明了需要改进的方向。