An Optical Guidance Method for Robotic Intramuscular Injection System

Intramuscular (IM) injection is mainly performed manually at present. Large-scale COVID-19 vaccination has exposed various problems of manual IM injection. In addition, the clinical success rate of manual IM injection is also unsatisfactory. Using robotic intramuscular injection system (RIMIS) is expected to realize automated vaccination and improve the success rate of IM injection. The existing robotic needle insertion system based on image guidance is not a practical option for IM injection because of the time-consuming medical imaging process. In this paper, an optical guidance method for RIMIS is proposed, which uses near-infrared optical tracking system and retro-reflective patch to achieve rapid acquisition of surface normal vector. A closed loop formed by six coordinate systems is used to realize the accurate control of the injection angle and depth. Experimental results show that the RIMIS based on the proposed method can complete the simulated IM injection operation without image guidance and possess accurate control of the injection angle and depth.