Design of Robot-based Measurement System for the Quality Assessment of Ultrasound Probes for Medical Imaging

The collaborative robot becomes very attractive applied to the manufacturing process of the ultrasound (US) probes for medical imaging, in which the electroacoustic characterization (pulse-echo test) plays a crucial role for the final product quality assessment. Unfortunately, commercial measurement systems show poor automation features and they are totally worker dependent that negatively affects both the operating cycle time and the data reproducibility, especially for the calibration phase. The aim of this feasibility study is to design a partially automated system for limiting the variability and the cycle time of the measurement by means of a collaborative robot, UR5, with an electric gripper and a 3D-printed adapter. Preliminary tests suggested that the collaboration between a collaborative robot, the so-called co-bots, and the human could open to a tangible advantage in terms of efficiency for the US probes manufacturing process. The higher repeatability performance of the co-bot with the reduction of the calibration time compared to the manual approach helps the trained worker for enhancing the quality assessment in an industrial scenario of thousands-demand per year of medical ultrasound probes.