RUS-Sim: A Robotic Ultrasound Simulator Modeling Patient-Robot Interaction and Real-Time Image Acquisition

Robotic ultrasound (US) imaging techniques are gaining increasing attention among the community. However, during the development of a robotic US system (RUSS), it is necessary to verify the effectiveness of the system inside a simulation environment before the deployment in the real world. Unfortunately, a simulation tool that considers both the dynamics of a robot system and the acquisition of US images has not been available. To address this need, we present RUS-Sim, a robotic US simulator built based on a well-established robotic simulation platform. RUS-Sim features (i) simulation of patient-robot interaction and (ii) real-time simulation of US images from the CT scan of an actual patient. Preliminary experiments show that the simulated RUSS can be controlled to maintain constant contact force (control error: 0.021 ± 0.105 N) on the patient body along the scan trajectory while collecting realistic US images at a rate of 50 fps.