前立腺触診用ロボットフィンガシステムのセンサ特性に関する硬さ評価実験

抄録

Palpation is a diagnosis method with touch feeling. The diagnosis by palpation is subjective, and the accuracy of diagnosis depends on the physician's experience and skill. Therefore, there is a need for a sensor system that performs palpation more objectively and automatically. In this study, we developed a palpation sensor system using a robotic finger that imitates a doctor's finger, targeting the prostate gland. In this study, a robotic finger was used to push a spherical indenter at the tip of the finger into a palpable object, and the hardness was estimated from the amount of pushing and the contact force. As a result, it was confirmed that it is possible to estimate the difference in Young's modulus of samples of different hardness, which are objects to be palpated.