A non-rigid map fusion-based direct SLAM method for endoscopic capsule robots

Abstract Since the development of capsule endoscopy technology, medical device companies and research groups have made significant progress to turn passive capsule endoscopes into robotic active capsule endoscopes. However, the use of robotic capsules in endoscopy still has some challenges. One such challenge is the precise localization of the actively controlled robot in real-time. In this paper, we propose a non-rigid map fusion based direct simultaneous localization and mapping method for endoscopic capsule robots. The proposed method achieves high accuracy for extensive evaluations of pose estimation and map reconstruction performed on a non-rigid, realistic surgical EsophagoGastroDuodenoscopy Simulator and outperforms state-of-the art methods.