The AI Center for Health Care project AI Surgery Tracking aims to use AI to enable surgeons to perform even more precise procedures and ultimately improve the well-being of patients.
The project aims to improve surgical care through user-friendly support systems from the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS and the Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality Research Lab (CGVR) at the University of Bremen are working together to develop a new visual tracking system. This system is designed to improve surgical navigation by using optical instead of infrared cameras. Conventional problems such as manual registration, calibration and obscuring or soiling of the reflective navigation markers of infrared camera systems are to be avoided. To this end, a self-calibrating multi-camera tracking system is being developed that can be used for open and minimally invasive spinal and orthopaedic surgeries, for example. This system should be able to automatically identify several instruments, precisely track their position and recognize the current progress of the procedure.
The use of such navigation systems can further increase the effectiveness of surgical procedures. The research results of this project should serve as a basis for further research projects in which the collected observation data is used to actually support surgeons through virtual or augmented reality. In addition, opportunities are opening up for independent projects in the field of clinical decision support, therapy planning and therapy simulation using AI.
For patients, this means safer and more efficient surgical care. The technology can increase robustness in the operating room and thus the health and safety of patients. In addition, the tracking technology developed could play a key role in future robot-assisted surgical procedures.
Project team members
Niklas Agethen Philipp Gehrmann Dr. Annika Gerken Dr. Jan Klein Dr. Tom Koller Janis Roßkamp Prof. Dr. Gabriel Zachmann
