A venipuncture robot with decoupled position and attitude guided by near-infrared vision and force feedback

Background: This study aims to develop a venipuncture robot to replace manual venipuncture to ease the heavy workload, lower the risk of 2019-nCoV infection, and boost venipuncture success rates. Method: The robot is designed with decoupled position and attitude. It consists of a 3-degree-of-freedom positioning manipulator to locate the needle and a 3-degree-of-freedom end-effector that is always vertical to adjust the yaw and pitch angles of the needle. The near-infrared vision and laser sensors obtain the three-dimensional information of puncture positions, while the change in force detects the state feedback of punctures. Results: The experimental results demonstrate that the venipuncture robot has a compact design, flexible motion, high positioning accuracy and repeatability (0.11 and 0.04 mm), and a high success rate when puncturing the phantom. Conclusion: This paper presents a decoupled position and attitude venipuncture robot guided by near-infrared vision and force feedback to replace manual venipuncture. The robot is compact, dexterous, and accurate, which helps to improve the success rate of venipuncture, and it is expected to achieve fully automatic venipuncture in the future.