Ren, HongliangVasilyev, NikolayDupont, Pierre2017-09-132011Ren, Hongliang, Nikolay V. Vasilyev, and Pierre E. Dupont. 2011. "Detection of curved robots using 3D ultrasound." In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference, pp. 2083-2089. doi:10.1109/IROS.2011.6094915http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33894947Three-dimensional ultrasound can be an effective imaging modality for image-guided interventions since it enables visualization of both the instruments and the tissue. For robotic applications, its realtime frame rates create the potential for image-based instrument tracking and servoing. These capabilities can enable improved instrument visualization, compensation for tissue motion as well as surgical task automation. Continuum robots, whose shape comprises a smooth curve along their length, are well suited for minimally invasive procedures. Existing techniques for ultrasound tracking, however, are limited to straight, laparoscopic-type instruments and thus are not applicable to continuum robot tracking. Toward the goal of developing tracking algorithms for continuum robots, this paper presents a method for detecting a robot comprised of a single constant curvature in a 3D ultrasound volume. Computational efficiency is achieved by decomposing the six-dimensional circle estimation problem into two sequential three-dimensional estimation problems. Simulation and experiment are used to evaluate the proposed method.en-USConference Paper2017-09-1310.1109/IROS.2011.6094915