An endoscope holder with automatic tracking feature for nasal surgery

Abstract

Endoscopic nasal surgery is with minimal invasiveness for the surgical treatment of chronic sinusitis or other nasal diseases. During the endoscopic surgery, the surgeon uses one hand to hold the endoscope and the other hand to hold the surgical instruments within the nasal cavity. In some cases, the endoscope has to be held by the assistant when the surgeon needs to use both hands to manipulate the surgical instruments. This paper presents a new robotic system to assist the surgeon in holding the endoscope during the nasal surgery. The endoscope can follow the specified tool in an intelligent and autonomous way. The endoscope holder is a robotic arm which has seven degrees of freedom (DOF) to control the position and orientation. A double parallelogram mechanism is used to create the remote center of motion (RCM). Optical positioning device is integrated in this system for position and orientation tracking. With the new robotic system, the surgeon can use both hands to manipulate surgical instruments. The tracking algorithm can guarantee the endoscope to follow the motion of the instrument exactly, safely and real-time.