Clinical motion tracking and motion analysis during ophthalmic surgery using electromagnetic tracking system

To design compact and precise robotic devices for medical applications one of the most important initial steps is choosing suitable actuators. In typical situations there is a tradeoff between working volume and precision. This trade-off and decision making is more serious in micro scale operations like ophthalmic surgeries. This paper analyzes the surgeons' motion during vitreo-retinal operation under clinical circumstances. The tracking system comprises an electromagnetic system to capture the surgical tool motion in 6 DOF and a coupled camera to keep the procedure under observation for the purpose of data validation. The contribution of this paper is divided to two folds: first is the precise definition of working volume and trajectories during ophthalmic surgery for robotic design optimization. This data will be used to define the parameters of actuators such as velocity, precision and travel range in design phase and will also be utilized for validation of the robot motion in further steps. The second contribution of this paper is the experimental setup which is extendable for observation of other micromanipulation applications such as ear surgery or cell injection.