Development of a navigation function for an endosocopic robot surgery system.

An endoscopic robot system that we reported at MMVR11 is able to perform various surgical procedures in the stomach by using two manipulators. However, it is difficult for surgeons to recognize the 3D location and the direction of the endoscope's tip in the abdominal region during robotic surgery. In this research, we have developed a navigation function that enables image-guided surgery by superimposing the patient's abdominal organ structure onto the endoscopic image. In this paper, we describe the overview of the navigation for the robot system and the result of an animal experiment done while applying the system.