Visual tracking of surgical tools for laparoscopic surgery

In this paper a concept of vision feedback in control of position of surgical tools for minimal invasive surgery (MIS) is presented. Vision feedback of robotic laparoscope positioning system for MIS is based on recognition of surgical tools on the image coming from a laparoscope camera. This information has to be used for automatic moving of camera during such operation. This is particularly useful in surgery, where the tool executes only small displacements. For laparoscopic surgeon it is very most important to keep position of the surgical tool in center of the image. In the paper, experimental results obtained using described method are presented. The prototype surgery telerobotic system is based on the Staubli robot equipped with laparoscopic camera mounted at the force-torque sensor.