Modélisation, commande géométrique et utilisation d'un robot portable de télééchographie : Teresa

International audienceThis paper presents a 4 DOF, non-redundant tele-operated robotic system, compact and portable with a remote centre of motion. This body mounted system provides medical experts the ability to remotely carry out, in real time, an ultrasound examination on a distant patient. The robot can rotate a standard ultrasound probe in almost any orientation, with a maximum inclination of 45° with respect to the ascendant normal of the patient's skin. A trade off was made between on the one hand, the compactness, ergonomy and security, and on the other hand the kinematics performance of the robot. This compromise led to a solution including two singularity branches. As we could access a closed-form kinematics model of the robot with well-conditioned equations, efficient control laws were implemented and also were able to manage these singularities. The concept of robotised tele-echography was clinically validated by, in more than 80 % of the cases, a good pre-diagnosis comparable to the one obtained in classical examinations