Projekte

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits

Whole'O'Hand - Holistic Intervention Glove System

The project Whole’O’Hand supports the surgeon's vision, orientation, and dexterity with a new concept for the integration and fusion of endoscopy, robotics, mechatronics, sensing and measuring devices, computer-assisted diagnosis, navigation, and visual computing.

Background

The small incisions used for optical and haptical access with¬in so-called minimal-invasive surgery (MIS) are known to reduce the trauma as well as the collateral damage for the patient. Nevertheless, such small keyhole incisions simultaneously reduce also the vision, the orientation, as well as the possibilities of maneuverability at the site for the surgeon. Hence, to compensate these cognitive and haptical losses, such small-scale interventions have always been dependent on technical equipment, as e.g. endoscopes, light-sources, and extensions of manipulators. Nevertheless, with the ge¬neration of instruments current available for MIC or NOTES interventions the steadily increasing possibilities of mechatronics, micro-electronics and information technologies are barely used. Furthermore, the instruments available lack the functional interfaces to acquire, store, receive and exchange information with other instruments and systems, and hence are not apt to use the possibilities of a higher-level information exchange, integration and complementary use of such systems.

Tackling these issues the Whole’O’Hand project was started where the Fraunhofer institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, Manufacturing Engineering and Automation as well as the Fraunhofer institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD as involved. The project is funded by the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft since 2008 and runs for three years.

Objectives

The project “Whole-’O’-Hand” (Holistic interventional interaction system) aims to support especially the surgeon's vision, orientation, and dexterity with a novel concept for the integration and fusion of endoscopy, robotics, mechatronics, sensing and measuring devices, computer-assisted diagnosis, navigation and visual computing.

In order to achieve a more gentle as well as faster intervention for the patient, the project aims to enhance the pre-operative planning of the intervention using multi-slice CT images, to support the surgeon during the intervention by novel tele-manipulation and instrumentation-exchange concepts, and finally to assist the surgeon by locating and diagnosing the lesion and guiding the resection using multi-modal imaging and image analysis methods.

Besides the conceptual and technical development and realization of all necessary sub-components and interfaces, the prototype of this system shall be used to demonstrate the potentials of computer-integrated surgical systems (CISS) for MIC and NOTES interventions, hence giving new impulses for future systems concepts and instruments.

As a primary application scenario for the presented closed-loop concept for this computer-integrated surgical system, minimally invasive liver tumor resection has been selected. Nevertheless, the presented concept and systems can be adapted to other scenarios as well, such as cystoscopic bladder surgery.