Ultrasonography has revolutionized non-invasive diagnostic methodologies, significantly enhancing patient outcomes across various medical domains. Despite its advancements, integrating ultrasound technology with robotic systems for automated scans presents challenges, including limited command understanding and dynamic execution capabilities. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel Ultrasound Embodied Intelligence system that synergistically combines ultrasound robots with large language models (LLMs) and domain-specific knowledge augmentation, enhancing ultrasound robots' intelligence and operational efficiency. Our approach employs a dual strategy: firstly, integrating LLMs with ultrasound robots to interpret doctors' verbal instructions into precise motion planning through a comprehensive understanding of ultrasound domain knowledge, including APIs and operational manuals; secondly, incorporating a dynamic execution mechanism, allowing for real-time adjustments to scanning plans based on patient movements or procedural errors. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system through extensive experiments, including ablation studies and comparisons across various models, showcasing significant improvements in executing medical procedures from verbal commands. Our findings suggest that the proposed system improves the efficiency and quality of ultrasound scans and paves the way for further advancements in autonomous medical scanning technologies, with the potential to transform non-invasive diagnostics and streamline medical workflows.

Ultrasound robots are increasingly used in medical diagnostics and early disease screening. However, current ultrasound robots lack the intelligence to understand human intentions and instructions, hindering autonomous ultrasound scanning. To solve this problem, we propose a novel Ultrasound Embodied Intelligence system that equips ultrasound robots with the large language model (LLM) and domain knowledge, thereby improving the efficiency of ultrasound robots. Specifically, we first design an ultrasound operation knowledge database to add expertise in ultrasound scanning to the LLM, enabling the LLM to perform precise motion planning. Furthermore, we devise a dynamic ultrasound scanning strategy based on a \textit{think-observe-execute} prompt engineering, allowing LLMs to dynamically adjust motion planning strategies during the scanning procedures. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our system significantly improves ultrasound scan efficiency and quality from verbal commands. This advancement in autonomous medical scanning technology contributes to non-invasive diagnostics and streamlined medical workflows.

It is the middle of the winter and a six-month-old child is brought with acute respiratory distress to a nursing station in a remote community in the Canadian North. The nurse realizes that the child is seriously ill and contacts a pediatric intensivist located in a tertiary care centre 900 kilometres away. The intensivist uses her tablet to activate a remote presence robot installed in the nursing station and asks the robot to go to the assessment room. The robot autonomously navigates the nursing station corridors and arrives at the assessment room two minutes later. With the help of the robot's powerful cameras, the doctor "sees" the child and talks to the nurse and the parents to obtain the medical history.