Columbia University

Peter K Allen

Dennis L Fowler

Andrew T Miller

Austin D Reiter

Michael K Reed

The present invention provides a system and single or multi-functional element device that can be inserted and temporarily placed or implanted into a structure having a lumen or hollow space, such as a subject's abdominal cavity to provide therewith access to the site of interest in connection with minimally invasive surgical procedures. The insertable device may be configured such that the functional elements have various degrees of freedom of movement with respect to orienting the functional elements or elements to provide access to the site from multiple and different orientations/perspectives as the procedure dictates, e.g., to provide multiple selectable views of the site, and may provide a stereoscopic view of the site of interest.

Insertable device and system for minimal access procedure

A system and method for tracking a surgical implement in a patient can have an imaging system configured to obtain sequential images of the patient, and an image recognition system coupled to the imaging system and configured to identify the surgical implement in individual images. The image recognition system can be configured to identify the surgical implement relative to the patient in one of the images based, at least in part, on an identification of the surgical implement in at least one preceding one of the sequential images, and a probabilistic analysis of individual sections of the one of the images, the sections being selected by the image recognition system based on a position of the surgical implement in the patient as identified in the at least one preceding one of the images.

Tool tracking during surgical procedures

A body-insertable imaging device includes a first camera that comprises a first image sensor and a first lens to pass incident light onto the first image sensor, a control interface to receive a remotely generated control signal, and an actuator communicatively coupled to the control interface and configured to support the camera and manipulate the camera about a pan axis, a tilt axis, and along a zoom direction in response to the control signal while the camera and actuator are within a body cavity, wherein the zoom direction extends out from a distal end of the body-insertable camera.

Insertable surgical imaging device

A system and method for generating a three-dimensional representation of an object or scene which minimizes the number of range scans required from different positions to produce an image of acceptable resolution. The technique first produces an initial mesh representation from a predetermined number of scans which is transformed into a solid. Vertices and surfaces in the solid mesh are tagged with either an occluded (unscanned) or imaged (scanned) tag. The occlusion tags allows the technique to select the best view for next scanning iteration by identifying the scanable surface area with the most occlusions. The technique then adjusts the object-scanner positioning so that the targeted view is scanned next. The process is repeated until an acceptable resolution of the object is achieved. The use of occlusion tags with a planning stage decreases the minimum number of scans necessary to complete the process.

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Pleasantville, NY, United States of America

Peter K Allen