A two-lens minimally invasive surgical panoramic endoscope design and implementation

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is currently a major technique for surgery. Compared to traditional methods of surgery, MIS can reduce post-surgical recovery time, cost and pain to patients after surgery. It is, therefore, of interest to doctors and patients. There are several MIS techniques that have been widely accepted for diagnosis and treatment in most hospitals, such as hysteroscopy, laparoscopy, and colonoscopy. The major problem of MIS is the narrow field of vision. We developed and validated a MIS Panoramic Endoscope (MISPE) to provide doctors with broad fields of view. MISPE features a combination of image overlapping and image stitching. Panoramic image apparatus has a two side-by-side endoscopic lenses that provide wide-angle inputs for image stitching. MISPE can provide doctors with panoramic images so doctors can easily discriminate the organ's positions in surgical operations. A two side-by-side sets of endoscopic lenses provide wide-angle inputs for image stitching. The angle between the two sets of lenses can be set to any desired angle. This functionality provides doctors with three-dimensional images so that doctors can easily discriminate the distances between equipment and the organs. Experimental results show that MISPE can enhance the image size by 152%, and three-dimensional images can be viewed on a 3D screen. The whole system is implemented by an embedded ARM9 processor and IG memory and has been successfully validated in animal in vivo experiments.