Telemanipulation for application of diagnostic and interventional ultrasound

Several research programmes on telemedicine and telerobotics are currently underway, most of them limited to diagnostics and teleconsultation. A new research and development programme started within the European workframe Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS), has the aim of developing and building two prototypes of remote controlled robots for interventional and laparoscopic ultrasonography. 11 centres (either clinical or technical) from six countries are taking part in the multimedia interactive demonstrator telepresence project (MIDSTEP). The user requirements for systems for diagnostic and interventional ultrasound (US) have been defined and evaluated in MIDSTEP Work-Package 1, whereas in Work-Package 2, all functional specifications have been included. The system architecture includes hardware, software and a communications network. The hardware consists mainly of a control station and a robot station, which includes a manipulator robot. Within the communication network, there are synchronous and asynchronous channels. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) lines are used for long distance transfer. Software for both the control (expert) station and the robot station (patient location) is under development. Special software will be developed to monitor all system functions a:nd control all safety mechanisms, as well as to guarantee the security of data communication. In the teleinterventional US scenario, the robot scans the abdominal organs and performs, under US guidance, a fine needle aspiration puncture. in the laparoscopic US probe telemanipulation scenario, an expert in a control station moves the laparoscopic US probe in order to scan the abdominal organs during diagnostic laparoscopy.