UC Irvine

Accurate radiotherapy requires precise soft-tissue anatomy at the time of treatment, yet current workflows lack volumetric imaging immediately prior to irradiation. Ultrasound offers real-time, radiation-free imaging but is limited by operator dependence. We present a fully autonomous robotic ultrasound platform for pre-treatment volumetric imaging in radiotherapy. CT-based scan trajectories are registered to the patient surface using an RGB-D camera, and a 6-DOF robotic arm performs surface-conforming, force-controlled B-mode scans with optically tracked 3D reconstruction. Validation in a human torso phantom demonstrates high-precision visualization of organ boundaries with strong correspondence to CT. This approach enables low-cost pre-treatment 3D imaging and establishes a foundation for future real-time dual-modality ultrasound and radioacoustic imaging (RAI) for combined anatomical and dose monitoring during treatment.