Planning of needle insertion for robotic-assisted prostate biopsy in augmented reality using RGB-D camera

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) technologies are increasingly used in many areas. There is a vast research activity within the field of AR in medical applications. In this paper, an AR system using RGB-D camera is proposed to facilitate trajectory planning for a prostate biopsy robot. The advantage of the developed AR environment consists in the possibility to generate needle trajectories using a 3D virtual model of a specific patient directly in the robot workspace. It was shown from a test case that the generated biopsy needle trajectory reaches successfully the target area.