An Ultrasound Probe Holder for Image-Guided Robot-Assisted Prostate Brachytherapy

An ultrasound probe holder is designed for use in the prostate brachytherapy procedure. The holder comprises a passive-jointed stabilizer that can be used to position, manipulate and lock in place the ultrasound probe, and a tracker mechanism to provide the position and orientation of the probe in 3D space. The information obtained from the integrated stabilizer-tracker mechanism can be utilized in image-guided robot-assisted prostate brachytherapy procedures. Performance tests show that the tracker assembly can acquire the position and orientation of the ultrasound probe with an average displacement accuracy of 0.66 mm and roll, pitch and yaw angular accuracies of 0.24deg, 0.38deg and 0.19deg, respectively.