A holographic telementoring system depicting surgical instrument movements for real-time guidance in open surgeries.

Background And Objective: During open surgeries, telementoring serves as a valuable tool for transferring surgical knowledge from a specialist surgeon (mentor) to an operating surgeon (mentee). Depicting the intended movements of the surgical instruments over the operative field improves the understanding of the required tool-tissue interaction. The objective of this work is to develop a telementoring system tailored for open surgeries, enabling the mentor to remotely demonstrate the necessary motions of surgical instruments to the mentee.

An Actuated Variable-View Rigid Scope System to Assist Visualization in Diagnostic Procedures.

Objective: Variable-view rigid scopes offer advantages compared to traditional angled laparoscopes for examining a diagnostic site. However, altering the scope's view requires a high level of dexterity and understanding of spatial orientation. This requires an intuitive mechanism to allow an operator to easily understand the anatomical surroundings and smoothly adjust the scope's focus during diagnosis.

A generic scope actuation system for flexible endoscopes.

Background: A scope actuation system assists a surgeon in steering a scope for navigating an operative field during an interventional or diagnostic procedure. Each system is tailored for a specific surgical procedure. The development of a generic scope actuation system could assist various laparoscopic and endoscopic procedures.

Development and Evaluation of a Mixed-Reality Tele-ultrasound System.

Objective: The objective of this feasibility study was to develop and assess a tele-ultrasound system that would enable an expert sonographer (situated at the remote site) to provide real-time guidance to an operator (situated at the imaging site) using a mixed-reality environment.

Methods: An architecture along with the operational workflow of the system is designed and a prototype is developed that enables guidance in form of audiovisual cues. The visual cues comprise holograms (of the ultrasound images and ultrasound probe) and is rendered to the operator using a head-mounted display device.

Scope actuation system for articulated laparoscopes.

Background: An articulated laparoscope comprises a rigid shaft with an articulated distal end to change the viewing direction. The articulation provides improved navigation of the operating field in confined spaces. Furthermore, incorporation of an actuation system tends to enhance the control of an articulated laparoscope.

Preliminary design and evaluation of a generic surgical scope adapter.

Background: Robotic scope assistant systems are used to visualise and navigate the operative field during a laparoscopic surgery. The objective of this work is to design a surgical scope adapter that enables control of different scope types (zero-degree, angulated, and articulated), and can be connected to any six degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator for usage as a robotic scope assistant system.

Methods: A surgical scope adapter compatible with different camera heads and scope types was designed and prototyped.

Evaluation of user-interfaces for controlling movements of virtual minimally invasive surgical instruments.

Background: Recent tele-mentoring technologies for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) augments the operative field with movements of virtual surgical instruments as visual cues. The objective of this work is to assess different user-interfaces that effectively transfer mentor's hand gestures to the movements of virtual surgical instruments.

Methods: A user study was conducted to assess three different user-interface devices (Oculus-Rift, SpaceMouse, Touch Haptic device) under various scenarios.

Preliminary design and evaluation of a remote tele-mentoring system for minimally invasive surgery.

Background: Tele-mentoring during surgery facilitates the transfer of surgical knowledge from a mentor (specialist surgeon) to a mentee (operating surgeon). The aim of this work is to develop a tele-mentoring system tailored for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) where the mentor can remotely demonstrate to the mentee the required motion of the surgical instruments.

Methods: A remote tele-mentoring system is implemented that generates visual cues in the form of virtual surgical instrument motion overlaid onto the live view of the operative field.

Towards development of a tele-mentoring framework for minimally invasive surgeries.

Background: Tele-mentoring facilitates the transfer of surgical knowledge. The objective of this work is to develop a tele-mentoring framework that enables a specialist surgeon to mentor an operating surgeon by transferring information in a form of surgical instruments' motion required during a minimally invasive surgery.

Method: A tele-mentoring framework is developed to transfer video stream of the surgical field, poses of the scope and port placement from the operating room to a remote location.