Towards Autonomous Robotic Minimally Invasive Ultrasound Scanning and Vessel Reconstruction on Non-Planar Surfaces.

Autonomous robotic Ultrasound (US) scanning has been the subject of research for more than 2 decades. However, little work has been done to apply this concept into a minimally invasive setting, in which accurate force sensing is generally not available and robot kinematics are unreliable due to the tendon-driven, compliant robot structure. As a result, the adequate orientation of the probe towards the tissue surface remains unknown and the anatomy reconstructed from scan may become highly inaccurate.

5th-Generation Mobile Communication: Data Highway for Surgery 4.0.

Introduction: 5th generation cellular mobile communications (5G) is one of the main requirements for the digital future. The new standard will offer high bandwidths (10GB/s), low latency (<1ms), and a high quality of service. It is not yet known whether 5G performance is sufficient for demanding eHealth applications (e.

[Model-based treatment in surgery].

Background: The "magic triangle" in surgery and other disciplines consists of the demand for increasingly gentler forms of treatment, simultaneous cost reduction and the fundamental primacy of improving the quality of results. The digitalization of medicine offers a promising opportunity to do justice to this, also in the sense of "Surgery 4.0".

Enhanced Visualization: From Intraoperative Tissue Differentiation to Augmented Reality.

Background: Optimal visualization of the operative field and methods that additionally provide supportive optical information form the basis for target-directed and successful surgery. This article strives to give an overview of current enhanced visualization techniques in visceral surgery and to highlight future developments.

Methods: The article was written as a comprehensive review on this topic and is based on a MEDLINE search and ongoing research from our own group and from other working groups.