Flexible calibration of actuated stereoscopic endoscope for overlay in robot assisted surgery

Abstract

Robotic assistance have greatly benefited the operative gesture in mini-invasive surgery. Nevertheless, the surgeon is still suffering from the restricted vision of the operating field through the endoscope. We thus propose to augment the endoscopic images with preoperative data. This paper focuses on the use of a priori information to initialise the overlay by a precise calibration of the actuated stereoscopic endoscope. The flexibility of the proposed method avoids any additional tracking system in the operating room and can be applied to other augmented reality systems. We present quantitative experimental calibration results with the da VinciTM surgical system, as well as the use of these results to initialise the overlay of endoscopic images of a plastic heart with a coronary artery model.