Vibration-Based Energy Metric for Restoring Needle Alignment in Autonomous Robotic Ultrasound

2025-08-09

AI Summary

In robotic ultrasound-guided needle insertion, needle tip invisibility and difficulty maintaining geometric alignment between the ultrasound imaging plane and the needle insertion plane arise from speckle noise, needle-induced artifacts, and low image resolution. To address this, we propose a vibration-energy-driven alignment method that does not rely on needle visibility in ultrasound images. For the first time, we apply periodic mechanical vibration to the needle and formulate a vibration-energy metric as a quantitative measure of plane coplanarity. Based on this metric, we design a closed-loop ultrasound probe control strategy enabling real-time, robust re-alignment under out-of-plane conditions. Experimental validation on ex vivo porcine tissue demonstrates translational and rotational alignment errors of 0.41 ± 0.27 mm and 0.51 ± 0.19°, respectively—significantly improving system accuracy and clinical operational reliability.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Manipulation
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
• Computer Vision: Motion & Tracking

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Robustness and generalizability of Web mining methods

Abstract

Precise needle alignment is essential for percutaneous needle insertion in robotic ultrasound-guided procedures. However, inherent challenges such as speckle noise, needle-like artifacts, and low image resolution make robust needle detection difficult, particularly when visibility is reduced or lost. In this paper, we propose a method to restore needle alignment when the ultrasound imaging plane and the needle insertion plane are misaligned. Unlike many existing approaches that rely heavily on needle visibility in ultrasound images, our method uses a more robust feature by periodically vibrating the needle using a mechanical system. Specifically, we propose a vibration-based energy metric that remains effective even when the needle is fully out of plane. Using this metric, we develop a control strategy to reposition the ultrasound probe in response to misalignments between the imaging plane and the needle insertion plane in both translation and rotation. Experiments conducted on ex-vivo porcine tissue samples using a dual-arm robotic ultrasound-guided needle insertion system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The experimental results show the translational error of 0.41$pm$0.27 mm and the rotational error of 0.51$pm$0.19 degrees.

Problem

• Restores needle alignment in robotic ultrasound procedures
• Overcomes visibility issues with vibration-based energy metric
• Corrects misalignments in translation and rotation

Innovation

• Vibration-based energy metric for alignment
• Mechanical needle vibration for robust detection
• Dual-arm robotic control for precise repositioning