Development of the Intelligent Surgical Knife and Navigation of the Operator

Abstract

We have been developing a intelligent surgical knife with LED level meter for liver surgery. When the knife approaches a part that must not be cut, it alerts by lighting LEDs gradually. Multiple markers are attached on the top of the knife to estimate the tip position during surgery. We conducted experiments to confirm the validity of operator’s navigation by using this knife. The task is a tracing of an invisible circle with the tip of the knife by only the information of the displayed LEDs.