AUROVAS

Autonomous Robotic System for Vascular Ultrasound Mass Screening

 

Mission

Due to the shortage of medical personnel, no ultrasound screening campaigns on the population are available for identifying dangerous and asymptomatic vascular diseases. Therefore, we propose the development of an autonomous robotic system that could enable the execution of standardized ultrasound procedures for extracting relevant vascular indicators. The robot moves the ultrasound probe on the patient tissues applying the proper forces for generating a good ultrasound view. The image is then processed by a deep neural network that segments the vascular structures and provides the final indicators. The system implements three different use cases: the detection of abdominal aortic aneurysm, the estimation of central venous pressure from jugular ultrasound and the execution of the compression ultrasound to identify deep vein thrombosis.


 

Detection of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm

The robot safely moves the probe on the patient's abdomen, while our system searches for the aorta and provides the measurement of its diameter.

Estimation of Central Venous Pression

The Central Venous Pressure could be estimated by monitoring the variation of the area of the jugular vein in the ultrasound image. The robot applies the proper forces to not deform the natural shape of the vein.


Compression Ultrasound

The robot applies the proper force on the thigh tissue. By monitoring in the ultrasound image the response of the vein to compression it is possible to identify signs of deep vein thrombosis.