Development of a gaze controlled robotic surgical camera

Robotic surgical Systems can use different types of input systems to control the robotic surgical camera. These include joystick, voice control and computer vision. A new method of camera control is proposed using the surgeon's eye gaze. Two input systems; joystick and eye gaze control are implemented in a robotic surgical camera system. A systems approach is used to develop the robotic system. Subject-based performance studies and a comparison of the mental workload induced on the operator to study the efficacy of the implementations are conducted. The construction of the robotic camera system is detailed with information on the input devices, programming and their integration. The eye gaze system eliminates one voluntary input required from the surgeon. Understanding the interaction of these systems with humans is critical. User performance while operating the system with these two modes of control is evaluated by obtaining tracking and time data during object identification tasks. Subjective mental workload data was obtained using the NASA-Task Load Index (TLX). Mental workload was found to be lower with eye gaze based control along with task completion time. Performance values did not return very significantly different results.