  In pathology and legal medicine, the histopathological and microbiological
analysis of tissue samples from infected deceased is a valuable information for
developing treatment strategies during a pandemic such as COVID-19. However, a
conventional autopsy carries the risk of disease transmission and may be
rejected by relatives. We propose minimally invasive biopsy with robot
assistance under CT guidance to minimize the risk of disease transmission
during tissue sampling and to improve accuracy. A flexible robotic system for
biopsy sampling is presented, which is applied to human corpses placed inside
protective body bags. An automatic planning and decision system estimates
optimal insertion point. Heat maps projected onto the segmented skin visualize
the distance and angle of insertions and estimate the minimum cost of a
puncture while avoiding bone collisions. Further, we test multiple insertion
paths concerning feasibility and collisions. A custom end effector is designed
for inserting needles and extracting tissue samples under robotic guidance. Our
robotic post-mortem biopsy (RPMB) system is evaluated in a study during the
COVID-19 pandemic on 20 corpses and 10 tissue targets, 5 of them being infected
with SARS-CoV-2. The mean planning time including robot path planning is
(5.72+-1.67) s. Mean needle placement accuracy is (7.19+-4.22) mm.
