Design and Experimental Study of a Robotic System for Target Point Manipulation in Breast Procedures

To achieve obstacle-avoiding puncture in breast interventional surgery, a robotics system based on three-fingered breast target-point manipulation is proposed and designed. Firstly, based on the minimum number of control points required for three-dimensional breast deformation control and the bionic structure of the human hand, the structure and control scheme of the robotics system based on breast target-point manipulation are proposed. Additionally, the workspace of the robotics system is analyzed. Then, an optimal control point selection method based on the minimum resultant force principle is proposed to achieve precise manipulation of the breast target point. Concurrently, a breast soft tissue manipulation framework incorporating a Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) system is developed to enhance operational accuracy. A dynamic model of breast soft tissue is developed by using the manipulative force–displacement data obtained during the process of manipulating breast soft tissue with mechanical fingers to realize the manipulative force control of breast tissue. Finally, through simulation and experiments on breast target-point manipulation tasks, the results show that this robotic system can achieve spatial control of breast positioning at arbitrary points. Meanwhile, the robotic system proposed in this study demonstrates high-precision control with an accuracy of approximately 1.158 mm (standard deviation: 0.119 mm), fulfilling the requirements for clinical interventional surgery in target point manipulation.