State-of-the-art laparoscopes for minimally invasive abdominal surgery are encumbered by cabling for power, video, and light sources. Although these laparoscopes provide good image quality, they interfere with surgical instruments, occupy a trocar port, require an assistant in the operating room to control the scope, have a very limited field of view, and are expensive. MARVEL is a wireless Miniature Anchored Robotic Videoscope for Expedited Laparoscopy that addresses these limitations by providing an inexpensive in vivo wireless camera module (CM) that eliminates the surgical-tool bottleneck experienced by surgeons in current laparoscopic endoscopic single-site (LESS) procedures. The MARVEL system includes 1) multiple CMs that feature a wirelessly controlled pan/tilt camera platform, which enable a full hemisphere field of view inside the abdominal cavity, wirelessly adjustable focus, and a multiwavelength illumination control system; 2) a master control module that provides a near-zero latency video wireless communications link, independent wireless control for multiple MARVEL CMs, digital zoom; and 3) a wireless human-machine interface that gives the surgeon full control over CM functionality. The research reported in this paper is the first step in developing a suite of semiautonomous wirelessly controlled and networked robotic cyber-physical devices to enable a paradigm shift in minimally invasive surgery and other domains such as wireless body area networks.

This paper describes the design and implementation of a Miniature Anchored Robotic Videoscope for Expedited Laparoscopy (MARVEL) and Camera Module (CM) that features wireless communications and control. The CM decreases the surgical-tool bottleneck experienced by surgeons in state-of-the art Laparoscopic Endoscopic SingleSite (LESS) procedures for minimally invasive abdominal surgery. The system includes: (1) a near-zero latency video wireless communications link, (2) a pan/tilt camera platform, actuated by two motors that provides surgeons a full hemisphere field of view inside the abdominal cavity, (3) a small wireless camera, (4 ) a wireless illumination control system, and (5) a wireless human-machine interface (HMI) to control the CM. An in-vivo experiment on a porcine subject was carried out to test the performance of the system. The robotic design is a Research Platform for a broad range of experiments in a range of domains for faculty and students in the Colleges of Engineering and Medicine and at Tampa General Hospital.This research is the first step in developing semi-autonomous wirelessly controlled and networked laparoscopic devices to enable a paradigm shift in minimally invasive surgery and other domains such as Wireless Body Area Networks.

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Abstract-This paper presents a novel design, and prototype implementation, of a virtually transparent epidermal imagery (VTEI) system for laparo-endoscopic single-site (LESS) surgery. The system uses a network of multiple, micro wireless cameras and multiview mosaicing technique to obtain a panoramic view of the surgery area. This view provides visual feedback to surgeons with large viewing angles and areas of interest so that the surgeons can improve the safety of surgical procedures by being better aware of where the surgical instruments are relative to tissue and organs. The prototype VTEI system also projects the generated panoramic view on the abdomen area to create a transparent display effect that mimics equivalent, but higher risk, open-cavity surgeries.

This article describes the design, optimization, and prototype testing of a Miniature Anchored Robotic Videoscope for networked Expedited Laparoscopy (MARVEL), which is a camera module (CM) that features wireless communications and control and is designed to decrease the surgical-tool bottleneck experienced by surgeons in state-of-the art Laparoscopic Endoscopic Single-Site (LESS) minimally invasive abdominal surgery. Software simulation is utilized to characterize the internal human body (in vivo) wireless channel to optimize the antenna, transceiver architecture, and communication protocols between multiple CMs. A CM research platform has been realized that includes: a near-zero latency video wireless communications link; a pan/tilt camera platform, actuated by two motors, which provides surgeons a full hemisphere field of view inside the abdominal cavity; a small wireless camera; an illumination control system; wireless controlled focus; digital zoom; and a wireless humanmachine interface (HMI) to control the CM. An in vivo experiment on a porcine subject has been carried out to test the performance of the system and features, with the exception of recently added autofocus and digital zoom. MARVEL is a research platform for a broad range of experiments for faculty and students in the Colleges of Engineering and Medicine at USF and at Tampa General Hospital.