ER4Surgery team

Expanded reality for minimally invasive surgery

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is becoming a preferred choice of surgeons in many surgical specialities. Still, MIS has posed significant challenges in terms of narrow surgical corridors and depth perception of anatomic structures. Using the high magnification features of surgical devices and the existence of surgical instruments in the surgical view exacerbate these challenges and result in highly restricted surgical views for surgeons.

Our team is developing ER4Surgery, a software solution powered by processing multiple video feeds of surgical scenes with a custom algorithm pipeline. Our goal is to provide an Expanded Reality (ER) capability for the whole surgical field through which surgeons could work over the areas of interest with a high zoom function and simultaneous visualization of the adjacent structures. 

We are currently conducting our Business Finland -funded Research-to-Business project. Our solution help neurosurgeons to see better during operations, which saves times and increases patient safety

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES 

•Expansion of surgical field of view in image-guided and MIS without causing interruptions in the workflow

•Automated calibration in response to varying angles and alignments of the operator camera

•Real-time video mosaicking and image distortion management 

•Optimal solution for a variety of surgical specialities across primary to tertiary care, including neurosurgery, ENT, ophthalmology, orthopaedic, gastroenterology, gynaecology, and plastic surgery

-Applicability to use cases beyond surgery

SEARCHING FOR

•Collaborations for feasibility studies with potential end users in hospitals and clinics 

•Inputs from industrial partners to push our invention towards commercialization 

•Partnerships with manufacturers of surgical microscopes and other image-guided operating devices, intra-operative navigation software, digital surgical platforms, and computer-assisted surgery

Core team: 

Ahmed Hussein, MD, PhD, Specialist in Neurosurgery, Microsurgery Center of Eastern Finland, Kuopio University Hospital

Mastaneh Torkamani Azar, PhD, Post-doc researcher, PoC project Leader 2022, Signal Processing, Interactive Technologies Research Group, School of Computing, UEF

Paavo Vartiainen, PhD, Post-doc researcher, Algorithm research&development, SPARK team lead, Department of Applied Physics.

Mehdi Faraz, MSc and MSc student, algorithm & software development.

Mikko Pitkänen, Business Champion of the team, Commercialization process lead

Senior members:

Pasi A Karjalainen, Professor in Signal and Image Processing. Experienced in research commercialization

Roman Bednarik, Assoc. Prof. Expert in eye tracking & human-computer interaction. Head of Interactive Technologies research group (uef.fi/int), School of Computing, UEF.

The team members are based at HUMEA Lab and Microsurgery Center facilities on Savilahti campus in Kuopio, Finland.