Toward Fully Automated Robotic Platform for Remote Auscultation
This addresses the need for cost-effective, automated diagnostic tools in healthcare systems facing workforce shortages due to aging populations, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing robotics and sensing technologies.
The study tackled the problem of automating remote auscultation for healthcare screening by developing a robotic platform that autonomously positions a stethoscope using LiDAR and a passive mechanism, with preliminary results showing it can estimate landing positions for cardiac exams and maintain safe contact force.
Since most developed countries are facing an increase in the number of patients per healthcare worker due to a declining birth rate and an aging population, relatively simple and safe diagnosis tasks may need to be performed using robotics and automation technologies, without specialists and hospitals. This study presents an automated robotic platform for remote auscultation, which is a highly cost-effective screening tool for detecting abnormal clinical signs. The developed robotic platform is composed of a 6-degree-of-freedom cooperative robotic arm, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) camera, and a spring-based mechanism holding an electric stethoscope. The platform enables autonomous stethoscope positioning based on external body information acquired using the LiDAR camera-based multi-way registration; the platform also ensures safe and flexible contact, maintaining the contact force within a certain range through the passive mechanism. Our preliminary results confirm that the robotic platform enables estimation of the landing positions required for cardiac examinations based on the depth and landmark information of the body surface. It also handles the stethoscope while maintaining the contact force without relying on the push-in displacement by the robotic arm.