Gaze-contingent control for minimally invasive robotic surgery

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Surgical Technology
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Recovering tissue depth and deformation is crucial for motion compensation and stabilization in robotic minimally invasive surgery.
• Accurate 3D motion and deformation data are essential for co-registration with preoperative imaging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate the effectiveness of binocular eye tracking for recovering 3D soft tissue motion and deformation.
• To enable enhanced control and stabilization in robotically assisted procedures.

Main Methods:

• Integrated a binocular eye-tracking device into a stereoscopic surgical console.
• Used a CT-scanned phantom heart model for accuracy demonstration and in vivo data for motion decoupling.
• Employed autoregressive modeling to assess oculomotor system dynamics.

Main Results:

• Successfully achieved depth reconstruction, deformation tracking, and motion stabilization of soft tissue using binocular eye tracking.
• The system demonstrated capability to handle frequencies typical in minimally invasive surgery.
• Enabled gaze-contingent decoupling of cardiac and respiratory motion.

Conclusions:

• Binocular eye tracking offers a novel approach for tightly integrating surgeons and surgical robots.
• This framework allows for surgeon-controlled interaction based on real-time sensing.
• Enhances precision and safety in robotically assisted minimally invasive procedures.