Real-time tracking system for assisted surgical operations

This paper presents a tracking algorithm for automatic instrument localization in robotically assisted laparoscopic surgery. We present a simple and robust system that does not need the presence of artificial marks, or special colours to distinguish the instruments. So, the system enables the robot to track the usual instruments used in laparoscopic operations. Since the instruments are normally the most structured objects in laparoscopic scenes, the algorithm uses the Hough transform to detect straight lines in the scene. In order to distinguish among different instruments or other structured elements present in the scene, motion information is also used. We present a detailed description of all the stages of the vision system: noise filter, edge orientation extraction, Hough transform computation, segment extraction, heuristic filter, position prediction, and finally, the selection of the tool to be tracked.