The method of mechanical (or robotic) palpation tomography assumes the use of a rigid indenter for in vivo detecting the presence of tissue lesions by the quasi-static contact probe inspection of the surface of the human body. The interpretation of the indentation data requires the inverse solution to contact problems for inhomogeneous substrates. A particular interest has been drawn to quantitative and qualitative analysis of the deformation behavior of a homogeneous elastic substrate with a spherical inclusion under the action of a rigid probe on the substrate surface. In the present paper, using a first-order perturbation-based asymptotic model of multiple contact, it is shown that the indentation tomography problem can be solved in a more efficient way if a system of indenters is simultaneously employed for performing the mechanical palpation diagnostics.

机械（或机器人）触诊层析成像的方法假定在体内使用刚性压头通过准静态接触探针检查人体表面来检测组织损伤的存在。压痕数据的解释需要反解以解决非均质基材的接触问题。对在球形表面上的刚性探针作用下具有球形夹杂物的均质弹性基材的变形行为的定量和定性分析引起了特别的兴趣。在本文中，使用基于一次扰动的多接触渐近模型，表明如果同时使用压头系统执行机械触诊诊断，则可以更有效地解决压痕断层成像问题。