Real-time needle tip localization in 2D ultrasound images for robotic biopsies

In this paper, real-time needle tip tracking method using 2D ultrasound (US) images for robotic biopsies is presented. In this method, the needle tip is estimated with the Gabor filter based image processing algorithm, and the estimation noise is reduced with the Kalman filter. This paper also presents the needle tip tracking simulation to test accuracy of the Kalman filter under position misalignments and tissue deformations. In order to execute proposed method in real-time, the bin packing method is used and the processing time is reduced by 56%, without a GPU. The proposed method was tested in four different phantoms and water medium. The accuracy of the needle tip estimation was measured with optical tracking system, and root mean square error (RMS) of the tip position is found to be 1.17 mm. The experiments showed that the algorithm could track the needle tip in real-time.