A low cost simulator to practice ultrasound image interpretation and probe manipulation: Design and first evaluation

Ultrasonography is the lowest cost no risk medical imaging technique. However, reading an ultrasound (US) image as well as performing a good US probe positioning remain difficult tasks. Education in this domain is today performed on patients, thus limiting it to the most common cases and clinical practice. In this paper, we present a low cost simulator that allows US image practice and realistic probe manipulation from CT data. More precisely, we tackle in this paper the issue of providing a cost effective realistic interface for the probe manipulation with a basic haptic feedback.