Abstract
To release the surgeons from the task of controlling the view during laparoscopic surgery, several automatic laparoscope positioning robots have been developed. These systems, however, depend on simple heuristics and may not offer the appropriate view that the surgeon wants. In this paper, we fully analyze the positional relationship between the laparoscope and the surgical instrument during laparoscopic cholecystectomy simulation and then propose a new algorithm for automatic positioning of a laparoscope during surgery. To evaluate validity of the proposed algorithm, we develop an automatic laparoscope positioning system on which the algorithm is implemented, and then set up experiments, in which the surgeon uses the system to perform a laparoscopic cholecystectomy simulation in an in-vitro environment. The experimental results show that our algorithm has a performance equal to the case that the doctor operates a laparoscope.
