Teleoperation of a concentric tube robot through hand gesture visual tracking

Concentric tube robots have been a popular study for minimially invasive surgical procedures because of their narrow diameters and curvature. To ensure safety and reliability, the surgeon is meant to control this robot through teleoperation. Current researchers use haptic devices; however, little research has been done at investigating alternative methods that could have more simplicity, controlability, portability or human-machine intiutiveness. Many gaming devices such as the Kinect or Leap Motion have become commercialised human-machine interfaces that are also gaining popularity in medical research for being touchless and intuitive. The work demonstrated in this paper investigates the implementation of a hand gesture visual tracking system, the hand to machine mapping algorithms and the practicality of this solution as being a teleoperation system for concentric tube robots.