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Ultrasound examinations represent one of the major diagnostic modalities of future healthcare. They are currently used to support medical space research but require a high skilled operator for both probe positioning on the patient's skin and image interpretation. TERESA is a tele‐echography project that proposes a solution to bring astronauts and remotely located patients on ground quality ultrasound examinations despite the lack of a specialist at the location of the wanted medical act.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for medical robot kinematics design developed using a knowledge‐management approach.

A classification of medical robots is proposed based on their kinematic characteristics and 76 robot specifications were collected in a catalogue. Then, having drawn a generic specifications sheet, rules were proposed to choose a structure from these specifications.

Findings are situated at several levels: the catalogue, the classification of robots with respect to their kinematic characteristics, a generic and specific specifications sheet, and an organigram to choose the most relevant structure from the specifications.

This structural synthesis represents a preliminary step in the design of medical robots which will be completed by an additional dimensional synthesis.

This work offers a new methodology for medical robots design distinct from what is usually done for medical or industrial robots design using intuition, expertise and non‐formal knowledge.