Path planning of flexible ureteroscope based on CT Image

In urinary surgery, flexible ureteroscope plays the role of the eye to provide surgical vision. In robotic assisted surgery systems (urological surgery), the robot needs to move forward with a flexible ureteroscope, so the path of the flexible ureteroscope is crucial. In this paper, the path planning of flexible ureteroscope is based on CT image. Firstly, CT image is preprocessed to improve image quality, including image filtering and image segmentation, then three-dimensional reconstruction of CT image is used to realize visualization. After CT image preprocess and 3D reconstruction, the boundary distance algorithm is used to extract the voxel points, and the voxel points are connected to obtain the centerline. The centerline is very tortuous due to the large number of voxel points and the sharp change of direction. It is proposed that the centerline is smoothed by sampling the voxel points and angle constraints. At the same time, aiming at the limited bending degree when the turning angle of flexible ureteroscope is too large, the curvature is used to constrain the centerline, so that the flexible ureteroscope can move according to the planned path. By testing on the CT images of model and real human body, the approach requirements of flexible ureteroscope can be completely met.