Tissue Tracking and Motion Compensation for Robotic Surgery

Abstract

The ability to negate tissue motion without complex physical constraints would greatly benefit beating heart surgery, procedures where respiration causes tissue movement, and in the case of physically unstable operating environments such as a battlefield, moving vehicle, or space station. Using a calibrated stereo camera, it is possible to measure the 3D position of an object with relation to any known frame, and subsequently its motion. A method has been developed and implemented with the RAVEN TM1 surgical research robot for tracking and compensating for tissue motion with the goal of uncovering future research directions which will lead to real-time implementation of this technology. Results reveal insights regarding algorithm optimization, robot hardware limits, and the likelihood that the methods used are capable of operating in real-time with adequate computer hardware utilization.