Spotlight-Based 3D Instrument Guidance for Autonomous Task in Robot-Assisted Retinal Surgery
Mingchuan Zhou, Jiahao Wu, Ali Ebrahimi, Niravkumar Patel, Yunhui Liu, Nassir Navab, Peter Gehlbach, Alois Knoll, M. Ali Nasseri, Iulian Iordachita
Abstract
Retinal surgery is known to be a complicated and challenging task for an ophthalmologist even for retina specialists. Image guided robot-assisted intervention is among the novel and promising solutions that may enhance human capabilities during microsurgery. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for 3D navigation of a microsurgical instrument based on the projection of a spotlight during robot-assisted retinal surgery. To test the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method, a vessel tracking task in a phantom with a Remote Center of Motion (RCM) constraint is performed by the Steady-Hand Eye Robot (SHER). The results are compared to manual tracking, cooperative control tracking with the SHER and spotlight-based automatic tracking with SHER. The reported results are that the spotlight-based automatic tracking with SHER can reach an average tracking error of 0.013 mm and keeping distance error of 0.1 mm from the desired range demonstrating a significant improvement compared to manual or cooperative control methods alone.