Arthrex
TrackAR

Better accuracy, better results

Project Type: 
Mechanical Engineering
Year: 
2023

Description

Minimally invasive surgeries, such as arthroscopic (keyhole) surgeries, have grown in popularity due to the promise of faster recovery times and causing less pain. A typical keyhole surgery setup involves a camera that captures the movement of a surgical tool and displays it on a monitor. During the surgery, it is easy to lose a sense of scale in translation and orientation of the tool. Currently, the surgeon uses their extremely refined intuition to navigate the anatomy. However, the limitations described could reduce the reliability and accuracy of the procedure, leading to complications after the surgery. To address this challenge, the TrackAR team is partnering with Arthrex California Technology to provide more spatial awareness to the surgeon. Our proposed method uses optical trackers called artificial reality (AR) tags placed on the surgical tool. A live camera feed paired with a computer vision algorithm would allow us to compute the position and angle of the markers and display information about the surgical tooltip. Doing so could greatly improve the quality of the repair and thus the outcome of the procedure.

Students

Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering