Report on Current Developments in Autonomous Robotic Nasopharyngeal Swabbing
General Direction of the Field
The field of autonomous robotic nasopharyngeal (NP) swabbing is witnessing significant advancements, driven by the need to reduce healthcare worker exposure to infectious diseases and to enhance clinical efficiency. Recent developments are characterized by a shift towards more versatile and patient-friendly robotic systems that can operate in unconstrained environments. Innovations in compliant control systems, visual servoing, and stochastic motion handling are at the forefront of these advancements.
Compliant Control Systems: There is a growing emphasis on developing compliant control systems that can safely and effectively insert NP swabs into the nasal cavity. These systems leverage force sensing end-effectector and torque-controlled loops to ensure safe and precise swab insertion, even in the presence of head motion.
Visual Servoing: Vision-guided pipelines are being refined to allow robots to align NP swabs with the nostrils of free-standing patients. These systems utilize semantic face models and monocular RGB-D cameras to estimate the pose of the face and guide the swab to the designated position.
Stochastic Motion Handling: Control systems are being designed to handle unpredictable head motions during the procedure. These systems employ visual servo controllers, compliant joint velocity controllers, and fuzzy logic systems to detect and react to changes in patient positioning and force measurements.
Generalizability and Safety: There is a strong focus on developing systems that are not only effective but also safe and generalizable to other close-contact healthcare tasks. This includes the integration of safety subsystems that can abort the procedure if safety criteria are violated.
Noteworthy Papers
- Compliant Control System: A study demonstrating the effectiveness of a compliant control system in outperforming basic position controllers for NP swab insertion, highlighting the need for further efforts in initial alignment and head motion handling.
- Vision-Guided Pipeline: A paper presenting a vision-guided pipeline for aligning NP swabs with free-standing patients, validated through human trials with a high success rate and no significant demographic biases.
- Stochastic Motion Handling: A research work showcasing a control system capable of performing NP swab tests even with significant head motion, emphasizing safety and reliability.
These developments signify a promising trajectory in the field, moving towards more autonomous, safe, and versatile robotic systems for close-contact healthcare tasks.
