Endoscope Tip Guidance Using Landmark Vectors and Shape Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Steerable endoscopes often loop around themselves during navigation, disorienting operators and increasing the risk of tissue damage or prolonging surgery time due to difficulty in determining the endoscope tip's direction relative to the target site.
Innovation Solution
A system that provides visual guidance by determining the endoscope's position and shape relative to a reference frame, transforming vectors to the image capturing device's perspective, and displaying graphical representations on a screen to indicate the direction towards landmarks, along with computer models of the endoscope and patient anatomy for navigation assistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a flexible endoscope is used to navigate through body lumens, then the endoscope can follow curvatures of body passages, but the endoscope may wind up looping around itself and disorienting the operator
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy or model of the endoscope's position and orientation within the patient's anatomy, displayed on a screen. This visual representation allows the operator to see where the endoscope tip is pointing without physical disorientation, resolving the contradiction between flexibility and ease of operation.
2Productivity
If the endoscope tip is turned multiple times to reach the target site, then the endoscope can navigate to the target, but additional time is required to ascertain the true direction of the endoscope relative to the target site
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides continuous visual feedback on a display screen showing the endoscope's current position, orientation, and direction relative to the target site. This real-time feedback eliminates the time needed to manually ascertain direction, as the operator can continuously monitor the visual display during navigation.
3Ease of operation
If visual guidance is provided through a display screen, then operator guidance is enhanced and direction to landmarks is clearly indicated, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a computer-based visual guidance system as an intermediary between the endoscope and the operator. This intermediary processes endoscope position data and generates visual representations on a display screen, enhancing operator guidance while managing complexity through software-based solutions rather than mechanical complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
Landmark directional guidance is provided to an operator of an endoscopic device by displaying graphical representations of vectors adjacent a current image captured by an image capturing device disposed at a tip of the endoscopic device and being displayed at the time on a display screen, wherein the graphical representations of the vectors point in directions that the endoscope tip is to be steered in order to move towards associated landmarks such as anatomic structures. Navigation guidance is provided to the operator by determining a current position and shape of the endoscope relative to a reference frame, generating an endoscope computer model according to the determined position and shape, and displaying the endoscope computer model along with a patient computer model referenced to the reference frame so as to be viewable by the operator while steering the endoscope.