A Novel Laser Guidance System for Alignment of Linear Surgical Tools: Its Principles and Performance Evaluation as a Man—Machine System

Abstract

A novel laser guidance system that uses dual laser beam shooters for the alignment of linear surgical tools is presented. In the proposed system, the intersection of two laser planes generated by dual laser shooters placed at two fixed locations defines the straight insertion path of a surgical tool. The guidance information is directly projected onto the patient and the surgical tool. Our assumption is that a linear surgical tool has cylindrical shape or that a cylindrical sleeve is attached to the tool so that the sleeve and tool axes are aligned. The guidance procedure is formulated mainly using the property that the two laser planes are projected as two parallel straight lines onto the cylindrical tool surface if and only if the cylinder axis direction is the same as the direction of the intersection of the two laser planes. Unlike conventional augmented reality systems, the proposed system does not require the wearing of glasses or mirrors to be placed between the surgeon and patient. In our experiments, a surgeon used the system to align wires according to the alignment procedure, and the overall accuracy and alignment time were evaluated. The evaluations were considered not to be simply of a mechanical system but of a man-machine system, since the performance depends on both the system accuracy and the surgeon's perceptual ability. The evaluations showed the system to be highly effective in providing linear alignment assistance.

Available range analysis of laser guidance system and its application to monolithic integration with optical tracker

“…[1,2], the straight insertion line is defined as intersection of two laser planes in the physical space. As shown in Fig.…”

“…Since linear insertion is a quite common surgical procedure, the alignment procedure will have wide varieties of potential application domains. In the previous papers, alignment accuracy was validated [2] and the procedure was shown to be highly effective in various scenes of hip surgery [1]. However, the following problems remain.…”

“…In Refs. [1,2], a special procedure for alignment of linear surgical tools using the laser system was proposed, in which straight insertion path is displayed as an intersection of two laser planes generated from two laser devices. Since linear insertion is a quite common surgical procedure, the alignment procedure will have wide varieties of potential application domains.…”

Precision-guided surgical navigation system using laser guidance and 3D autostereoscopic image overlay

“…Sasama et al developed a laser guidance system that was monolithically integrated with an optical tracker [12,13]. The laser beams are projected onto the surgical field so that the surgeon can obtain guidance information directly.…”

Advanced Medical Displays: A Literature Review of Augmented Reality

“…Sasama et al [85] use two lasers for mere guidance. Each of these lasers creates a plane by means of a moving mirror system.…”