스프링 격발형 생검총 구조를 가진 생검 시술 자동화 로봇 말단장치

Biopsy is a typical needle type intervention procedure performed under radiographic image equipment such as computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam CT. This minimal invasive procedure is a simple and effective way for identifying cancerous condition of a suspicious tissue but radiation exposure for the patients and interventional radiologists is a critical problem. In order to overcome such trouble and improve accuracy in targeting of the needle, there have been various attempts using robot technology. Those devices and systems, however, are not for full procedure automation in biopsy without consideration for tissue sampling task. A robotic end-effector of a master-slave tele-operated needle type intervention robot system has been proposed to perform entire biopsy procedure by the authors. However, motorized sampling adopted in the device has different cutting speed from that of biopsy guns used in the conventional way. This paper presents the design of a novel robotic mechanism and protocol for the automation of biopsy procedure using spring-triggered biopsy gun mechanism. An experimental prototype has been successfully fabricated and shown its feasibility of the automated biopsy sequence.