Tumor Detection and Morphology Assessment in the Liver Tissue Using an Automatic Tactile Robot

In this paper an automatic examination robot was developed to improve the process of cancer detection, tumor localization and geometrical shape diagnosis. A uniformly distributed compressive load was applied to the top tissue surface and the resultant mechanical stress was measured that was employed for the tumor diagnosis task. The experimental examinations were performed on the soft tissue of the liver. A compression test was used to extract viscoelastic properties of tissue. Viscoelastic coefficients were used in the finite element modeling and the capability of the robotic-assisted tumor detection procedure was verified. Finally to localize the tumor embedded in the tissue, two sinusoidal and step paths were generated which was followed by the robot. The mean errors of path following by the automatic examination robot affirmed the accuracy and the reliability of the Cartesian mechanism in the soft tissue scanning.