Development of a Mechatronic End-Effector for Robot-Assisted Ultrasound Guided Tool Navigation in Local Destruction Procedures

The article is devoted to the development and analysis of the design of a mechatronic end-effector for a medical manipulator intended for ultrasound guided local destruction methods. A plane-parallel kinematic scheme of the end-effector, which has three controllable axis, was proposed, and it provides guidance and maintenance of the ablation tool insertion trajectory in the scanning plane of the ultrasonic transducer. A kinematic analysis of the design was conducted, including the forward and inverse kinematics problems, and a method for the coordinated motion planning of the end-effector and the medical manipulator was proposed. Design solutions are aimed at minimizing the positioning error of the system by shifting the center of mass and increasing its overall rigidity. The main provisions of the control algorithm are presented, which allows to keep the ablation tool in the visualization plane when the transducer position changes. The theoretical evaluation demonstrates the potential of the proposed end-effector to improve the accuracy and efficiency of minimally invasive interventions in clinical practice. In the future, it is planned to manufacture a prototype and integrate it into a medical manipulator for experimental evaluation.