A year with DANARC: Interdisciplinary collaboration translates clinical needs into innovation

October 27, 2026

The doctor is pushing the ultrasound machine through the corridor in the basement of the hospital. It’s quicker than making your way through the crowded corridors at Odense University Hospital.

There is nobody in the corridors here, and although the machine is bulky, it has wheels and a handle, which allows him to push it along.

Throughout his career, he has examined thousands of hearts. But today he isn’t on his way to examine a patient. He’s going to test a new idea.

The cardiologist resolutely pushing the ultrasound machine is called Axel Diederichsen.

He’s on his way back to a network meeting that he left to fetch the ultrasound machine. At the meeting, he met some engineers who claimed they could build a robot that scans hearts.

Axel and his colleagues know that such a scan requires a lot of skill. No two patients are the same. You need to apply different amounts of pressure, and hearts may be positioned slightly differently. Doctors find it hard to believe that a robot can do the job.

Still, Axel’s interest has been piqued, and he needs to show the engineers what it takes to scan a heart, so now he is fetching the equipment.

Upon returning, he takes off his shirt and lies down on a table – a bit unconventional, but that’s what it takes in this situation. One of his colleagues scans his heart. They show the engineers that the procedure is not as simple as it might seem.

One of the engineers reaffirms they can build a robot that can do that. Something clicks right there. The cardiologists begin to see the potential for collaboration.

That’s because Denmark is facing a challenge. Every year, 200,000 people have their hearts scanned at a hospital. Fortunately, the vast majority are healthy. However, the many ultrasound scans create bottlenecks and long waiting lists.

With a healthcare technology solution that scans patients, healthcare professionals will have more time to take care of sick patients, and waiting times are also reduced. Naturally, the doctors must check the images.

Axel’s idea of bringing the ultrasound machine to the meeting room sparked what has since developed into the Danarc project.

Before the robot can learn, the researchers must understand the doctor's touch

Today, cardiologist and Professor Axel Diederichsen is in charge of Danarc – a pioneering project that has received DKK 14 million from MedTech Odense. Over a period of five years, the project will build a prototype of a robot that can perform cardiac ultrasonography.

About a year after the project group’s first meeting in September 2025, all of the project’s work packages have been launched. A large part of the first year has been spent establishing the collaboration and getting the necessary approvals to work with patients, scans and health data.

Axel Diederichsen explains, ‘We’re still in the early stages of the project.’

- But the work is underway, and we’re slowly building up the knowledge that is required before a robot can take over parts of the work. Starting this month, the researchers will be travelling to Aabenraa to gather insights and data, and it will be exciting to bring a regional hospital into the collaboration.

An engineer and an ethnographer have moved into the doctor’s examination room. So far, they have observed about 50 cardiac scans and they are allowed to observe up to 500. Using sensors and cameras, the engineer registers how the doctor moves the ultrasound probe and how hard it is pressed against the chest.

For engineer Bruno Oliveira from SDU Robotics, the large amount of data is crucial, because he is building the first early model of the robotic system. The future robot isn’t just required to find the right cardiac images. It must also be able to move about safely and adapt to the individual patient. To understand such a complex task, we need different types of data, including images, force measurements, and probe movement.

- The heart is an interesting organ because it’s so dynamic. This also makes it particularly challenging to build a robot that can work in the same way as a doctor. Before we can develop the technology, we need to understand all the steps involved in a cardiac scan. In practice, we need to learn how the doctor thinks and works before we can translate it into a robotic system, he explains.

The engineer’s observations are supplemented by the ethnographer, who examines another part of the treatment: How does the robot ask the patient to remove their upper clothing? How does the doctor explain what is going to happen? And what does it take for a patient to feel safe being examined by a robot?

The momentum also lies in what we cannot see

Working with data and approvals has proven to be one of the project’s biggest challenges. According to Axel Diederichsen, it is not a lack of funding that is slowing down the work. Rather, it is the regulatory and practical obstacles to data transfer, among other things.

But once the data can be shared across institutions, the engineers will need to further develop the interaction between the robotic arm and the AI model. The images from the ultrasound probe must be analysed continuously so that the model can tell the robot whether to move the probe, turn it or change the pressure.

- The knowledge that doctors share with us is essential. The unique thing about this collaboration is the extent to which they make themselves available and share their practice and knowledge with us. The close collaboration means that we are already well on our way, says engineer Bruno Oliveira, SDU Robotics.

The goal is to have a prototype ready before the five-year project period expires. Concurrently, the project will continue to pursue approvals and clinical testing while exploring how the technology can eventually be translated from a research project into routine hospital use.

No one can handle the task alone

For Axel Diederichsen, one of the key experiences after the first year of the pioneer project is that the development involves more than just healthcare technology. It depends on many different disciplines working together.

- The management must prioritise the collaboration. Doctors must provide access to clinical reality. The engineers must translate the doctor’s skills into data and technology. The ethnographers must help ensure that patients and healthcare professionals have confidence in the solution. Finally, experts in regulation and commercialisation must help create a pathway from research to practice, the cardiologist explains.

He was initially sceptical about the project. In his mind, cardiac scans were too complex to be automated. Today, Axel Diederichsen is still aware of the challenges – but as the collaboration has developed, the project has also given rise to something else:

Confidence.

Confidence that the various experts can contribute something that the others cannot. And confidence that the solutions to some of the healthcare system’s biggest challenges emerge when different disciplines come together, each contributing its own expertise to the project.