  Ultrasound (US) imaging is a vital adjunct to mammography in breast cancer
screening and diagnosis, but its reliance on hand-held transducers often lacks
repeatability and heavily depends on sonographers' skills. Integrating US
systems from different vendors further complicates clinical standards and
workflows. This research introduces a co-robotic US platform for repeatable,
accurate, and vendor-independent breast US image acquisition. The platform can
autonomously perform 3D volume scans or swiftly acquire real-time 2D images of
suspicious lesions. Utilizing a Universal Robot UR5 with an RGB camera, a force
sensor, and an L7-4 linear array transducer, the system achieves autonomous
navigation, motion control, and image acquisition. The calibrations, including
camera-mammogram, robot-camera, and robot-US, were rigorously conducted and
validated. Governed by a PID force control, the robot-held transducer maintains
a constant contact force with the compression plate during the scan for safety
and patient comfort. The framework was validated on a lesion-mimicking phantom.
Our results indicate that the developed co-robotic US platform promises to
enhance the precision and repeatability of breast cancer screening and
diagnosis. Additionally, the platform offers straightforward integration into
most mammographic devices to ensure vendor-independence.
