Fig. 3: Autonomous carotid artery ultrasound examination system workflow.

a Schematic diagram of each stage, including the relative position of the transducer to the carotid artery, the motion posture of the transducer, and the corresponding ultrasound images. Finally, assess the collected images’ quality and select the appropriate ultrasound images for biometric measurement and plaque segmentation. b The coordinate system of the transducer and its action space, 6 degrees of freedom, 12 discrete actions. c Longitudinal section diagrams of the carotid artery, vascular wall structures, and the schematic diagram of biometrics. d Collecting high-quality demonstration data (action-image pair) from experts, specifically how to adjust the transducer to obtain ultrasound images suitable for measurement or diagnosis. Subsequently, leveraging an imitation learning paradigm, we encapsulate experts’ knowledge within deep neural networks to facilitate autonomous ultrasound scanning. The term “CCA”, “SCA”, “ICE”, and “ECA” refers to the common carotid artery, subclavian artery, internal carotid artery, and external carotid artery, respectively.