Ultrasound (US) imaging is a vital adjunct to mammography in breast cancer screening and diagnosis, but its reliance on hand-held transducers often lacks repeatability and heavily depends on sonographers' skills. Integrating US systems from different vendors further complicates clinical standards and workflows. This research introduces a co-robotic US platform for repeatable, accurate, and vendor-independent breast US image acquisition. The platform can autonomously perform 3D volume scans or swiftly acquire real-time 2D images of suspicious lesions. Utilizing a Universal Robot UR5 with an RGB camera, a force sensor, and an L7-4 linear array transducer, the system achieves autonomous navigation, motion control, and image acquisition. The calibrations, including camera-mammogram, robot-camera, and robot-US, were rigorously conducted and validated. Governed by a PID force control, the robot-held transducer maintains a constant contact force with the compression plate during the scan for safety and patient comfort. The framework was validated on a lesion-mimicking phantom. Our results indicate that the developed co-robotic US platform promises to enhance the precision and repeatability of breast cancer screening and diagnosis. Additionally, the platform offers straightforward integration into most mammographic devices to ensure vendor-independence.

翻译：超声（US）成像是乳腺癌筛查与诊断中乳腺X线摄影的重要补充手段，但手执式传感器操作常缺乏可重复性且高度依赖操作者技能。不同厂商超声系统的整合进一步增加了临床标准与工作流程的复杂性。本研究提出一种具有可重复性、高精度且不依赖厂商的协作机器人超声平台，用于乳腺超声图像采集。该平台可自主执行三维容积扫描，或快速获取可疑病灶的实时二维图像。系统采用Universal Robot UR5机械臂，集成RGB相机、力传感器及L7-4线性阵列探头，实现自主导航、运动控制与图像采集功能。通过严格标定相机-乳腺X线图像、机械臂-相机及机械臂-超声等参数，并经PID力控机制确保扫描过程中机械臂持探头与压迫板保持恒定接触力，保障患者安全与舒适度。在模拟病灶体模上的验证结果表明：所开发的协作机器人超声平台有望提升乳腺癌筛查与诊断的精确度与可重复性。此外，该平台可便捷集成至大多数乳腺X线设备中，确保厂商无关性。