Abstract
Endoscopic imaging allows longitudinal observation of epithelial pathologies in tubular organs throughout the body. However, the imaging and optical diagnosis of tubular biostructures such as small animal models and small pediatric organs require appropriately miniaturized devices. A miniaturized catadioptric flexible side-view endoscope is proposed with omnidirectional field of view (FOV) in the transverse direction and sub-mm-scale feature resolution. The FOV in the longitudinal direction is 50°. Images are unwrapped and stitched together to form composite images of the target by two different algorithms, revealing a composite FOV of more than 3.5 cm × 360°. The endoscope is well suited for minimally invasive rapid monitoring of thin tubular organs in pediatric patients, as well as for imaging of small animal disease models at near-cellular resolution.
Highlights
Catadioptric devices, consisting of a combination of reflective and refractive elements, are uniquely suited for applications requiring instantaneous imaging of a panoramic field of view with a single sensor, and as a result they have found applications in fields as diverse as computer vision and navigation [1], industrial oil pipe inspection [2], and wide-angle surveillance [3,4], as well as in gastrointestinal imaging [5,6,7]
We demonstrate a family of novel flexible miniaturized micro-endoscopes based on a single-fold catadioptric mirror design, which give a 360° side-view image of the intestinal wall
We report on the realization of a miniaturized flexible catadioptric sensor capable of panoramic view and composite image generation, with applications to pediatric diagnosis and small animal model endoscopy
Summary
Catadioptric devices, consisting of a combination of reflective and refractive elements, are uniquely suited for applications requiring instantaneous imaging of a panoramic field of view with a single sensor, and as a result they have found applications in fields as diverse as computer vision and navigation [1], industrial oil pipe inspection [2], and wide-angle surveillance [3,4], as well as in gastrointestinal imaging [5,6,7]. For the imaging of these targets in vivo and the full longitudinal monitoring of the tumor development cycle, miniaturized side-view endoscopes are necessary. Miniaturized endoscopes developed for small-animal applications may later be adapted for pediatric and minimally-invasive clinical applications. State-of-the-art side-view imaging is performed by rotating a mirrored micro-endoscope probe to stitch. We demonstrate a family of novel flexible miniaturized micro-endoscopes based on a single-fold catadioptric mirror design, which give a 360° side-view image of the intestinal wall. The probe is applied for imaging of the interior of a pediatric cardiac phantom fabricated by 3D printing, resulting in the first realistic phantom image captured by a miniaturized catadioptric probe, to the best knowledge of the authors
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