Kinect Hack Provides Robot Surgeon with New Eyes

Logan Westbrook

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Feb 21, 2008
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Kinect Hack Provides Robot Surgeon with New Eyes

The motion controller has saved time and money in ongoing efforts to build better, safer surgical tools.

Lightsabers [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105506-Programmer-Creates-Kinect-Lightsaber-Hack] and terrifying breasts [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106672-Kinect-Hack-Slaps-Worlds-Most-Jiggly-Boobs-on-Anyone] are entertaining and all, but a group of grad students at the University of Washington had a slightly loftier goal in mind for their Kinect hack. The group is using Kinect to help make robot-assisted surgery safer, by giving surgeons tactile feedback they would otherwise lack.

In robotic surgery, the surgeon uses remote controlled surgical instruments that are inserted into the patient via a tube. The surgeon uses a joystick-like controller to move and operate the instruments, but it can be very difficult to know exactly what's going on. If the instruments hit something solid, like a bone, they will stop moving, but the controller won't.

In order to get around this problem, the students used Kinect to build a map of the inside of a patient's body, by measuring reflected infrared radiation. This gives the surgeon a much better idea of where he or she is inside the patient's body, and can prevent the robot from moving in certain directions if doing so would be dangerous. It would even be possible to designate certain areas as out of bounds, and protect vital organs from injury.

Student Fredrik Ryden, who wrote the code to make the project work in just a weekend, said that Kinect was an ideal choice, because it was accessible, low-cost, and Microsoft had already done the work of designing and building it. By using the motion controller for the prototype, instead of the CT scanner that the original plan called for, the University saved around $50,000 in development costs.

This is just the first step, of course. Kinect is a fine as a prototype, but it's much too big to be used for a real surgical robot, and the cameras aren't of a high enough resolution. Eventually, the team hopes to make the robots reliable enough to one day perform surgery remotely. Electrical engineering professor Howard Chizeck envisioned a future where the robots would allow victims of natural disasters to receive life-saving surgery on-site, instead of having to wait until they reached a hospital.

Source: University of Washington [http://dailyuw.com/2011/1/18/uw-students-adapt-gaming-hardware-robotic-surgery/] via Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5736680/kinect-hacked-to-perform-surgery?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20gizmodo/full%20(Gizmodo)]



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hansari

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May 31, 2009
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Next week: Kinect enables handsfree driving.

Next month: Kinect helps catch Osama Bin Laden.

Next Year: Kinect makes planetary colonization easier.

Too bad the Move isn't getting this kind of treatment. But in all fairness, the PS3 consoles themselves were being lauded as cheap megacomputers by Universities and the military.
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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Motion controls have always had innumerable potential applications outside of gaming.
Which is why it's so infuriating that we only got shovelware on the Wii.
 

Evilsanta

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Apr 12, 2010
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Is there anything the Kinect can't do?!

OT: That sounds awesome. I hope they succeced.
 

Daemascus

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Mar 6, 2010
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Yet more proof the Kinect is better at anything besides its intended purpose.
 

Jonluw

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Logan Westbrook said:
Snippolainen
The "lightsabers" link doesn't work.

I might come back with something on topic later.

OT: Yeah, that sounds interesting and all. Soon we will be able to have the robots operate on our bodies without having us interfere. Then we can manufacture robots that are free to bring people to the hospital ehn they are hurt, and then, in a while, we're going to get The Matrix.
 

OmegaAlucard777

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Sep 20, 2010
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I am all for Robot Medics. However... them preforming surgery at the Site of a natrual disaster is not the thing to do. Unless said person wishes to die from infection since the area is not disinfected. We are still going to need hospitals. Oh Electrical engineering professor Howard Chizeck.. You silly silly man.
 

Anton P. Nym

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Sep 18, 2007
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Logan Westbrook said:
That Guy Who Phails said:
What next?

"Kinect Hack Cures Paraplegic"
Kinect Hands Out Free Puppies.
Kinect: Children playing without parental supervision will be given an espresso and a puppy. (How's that for effective Family Controls?)

-- Steve
 

Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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Atmos Duality said:
Motion controls have always had innumerable potential applications outside of gaming.
Which is why it's so infuriating that we only got shovelware on the Wii.
What I always wanted to see from the Wii is a far more intuitive 3D modeling program, but the Kinect could do it so much better. The Kinect is just leagues ahead of the kinda lackluster PS Move, and pretty far ahead of the Wiimote, too. The technology- real-time motion capture of a human skeleton without any physical attachments - is wonderful on its own. Making it cheap and available to the masses is just mind-blowing.
I have no idea why the Hell Microsoft thought of using this kind of technology to achieve motion controls, compared to the simpler methods Nintendo or Sony are using, but I can imagine it having something to do with good-will fairies or unicorns telling someone with deep pockets that magic cameras would save the world and make them millions.
 

Atmos Duality

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Erana said:
What I always wanted to see from the Wii is a far more intuitive 3D modeling program, but the Kinect could do it so much better. The Kinect is just leagues ahead of the kinda lackluster PS Move, and pretty far ahead of the Wiimote, too. The technology- real-time motion capture of a human skeleton without any physical attachments - is wonderful on its own. Making it cheap and available to the masses is just mind-blowing.
I have no idea why the Hell Microsoft thought of using this kind of technology to achieve motion controls, compared to the simpler methods Nintendo or Sony are using, but I can imagine it having something to do with good-will fairies or unicorns telling someone with deep pockets that magic cameras would save the world and make them millions.
At this point, Microsoft is poised to turn out a more professional, non-gaming version of Kinect.
They've proven that making motion controls and sensors can be relatively cheap and affordable; others have proven it can be practical when they take the Fisher Price logic out of the picture.

Now the question is whether they will capitalize on it before someone else does them one better (possibly even Nintendo, they're still in a position to release an actual next-gen console, processing wise, within the next 5 years).
 

Ghengis John

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Dec 16, 2007
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Daemascus said:
Yet more proof the Kinect is better at anything besides its intended purpose.
You parrot this so much I have to wonder. Have you even tried one? And I don't mean "I saw one at the store, it looked totally gay" or some hater crap. Of course only you will know if you're lying or not, and I guess someone with no soul could theoretically stand in front of one with no willingness to co-operate then shout "humbug", but most people, even detractors will at least admit it can be pretty darned fun (once they've tried it at any rate).