Tactile mapping for breast cancer diagnosis

This paper presents the development of a prototype tactile mapping device (TMD) system comprised mainly of a tactile sensor array probe, a 3D camera and a force/torque sensor, which can provide the means to produce tactile maps of the breast lumps during a breast palpation. Focusing on the key tactile topology features from breast palpation such as spatial location, size and shape of the detected lesion, and the force levels used to demonstrate the palpable abnormalities, these maps can record the results of clinical breast examination with a set of pressure distribution profiles and force sensor measurements due to detected lesion. The vision based knowledge, neural networks and tactile sensing technology are integrated for the investigation of soft tissue interaction with tactile/force sensor, where the hard inclusion (breast cancer) can be characterized through the neural network learning capability, instead of using a simplified complex biomechanics model with many heuristic assumptions. These maps will serve as an objective documentation of palpable lesions for future comparative examinations. Preliminary results of simulated experiments of the TMD prototype have validated our hypothesis and provided solid promising data showing the feasibility of the TMD in real clinical applications.