Multi-stage Suture Detection for Robot Assisted Anastomosis based on Deep Learning

In robotic surgery, task automation and learning from demonstration combined with human supervision is an emerging trend for many new surgical robot platforms. One such task is automated anastomosis, which requires bimanual needle handling and suture detection. Due to the complexity of the surgical environment and varying patient anatomies, reliable suture detection is difficult, which is further complicated by occlusion and thread topologies. In this paper, we propose a multi-stage framework for suture thread detection based on deep learning. Fully convolutional neural networks are used to obtain the initial detection and the overlapping status of suture thread, which are later fused with the original image to learn a gradient road map of the thread. Based on the gradient road map, multiple segments of the thread are extracted and linked to form the whole thread using a curvilinear structure detector. Experiments on two different types of sutures demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed framework.Comment: Submitted to ICRA 201

Unleashing the Power of Depth and Pose Estimation Neural Networks by Designing Compatible Endoscopic Images

Deep learning models have witnessed depth and pose estimation framework on unannotated datasets as a effective pathway to succeed in endoscopic navigation. Most current techniques are dedicated to developing more advanced neural networks to improve the accuracy. However, existing methods ignore the special properties of endoscopic images, resulting in an inability to fully unleash the power of neural networks. In this study, we conduct a detail analysis of the properties of endoscopic images and improve the compatibility of images and neural networks, to unleash the power of current neural networks. First, we introcude the Mask Image Modelling (MIM) module, which inputs partial image information instead of complete image information, allowing the network to recover global information from partial pixel information. This enhances the network' s ability to perceive global information and alleviates the phenomenon of local overfitting in convolutional neural networks due to local artifacts. Second, we propose a lightweight neural network to enhance the endoscopic images, to explicitly improve the compatibility between images and neural networks. Extensive experiments are conducted on the three public datasets and one inhouse dataset, and the proposed modules improve baselines by a large margin. Furthermore, the enhanced images we proposed, which have higher network compatibility, can serve as an effective data augmentation method and they are able to extract more stable feature points in traditional feature point matching tasks and achieve outstanding performance

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Multi-view Face Pose Classification by Boosting with Weak Hypothesis Fusion Using Visual and Infrared Images

This paper proposes a novel method for multi-view face pose classification through sequential learning and sensor fusion. The basic idea is to use face images observed in visual and thermal infrared (IR) bands, with the same sampling weight in a multi-class boosting structure. The main contribution of this paper is a multi-class AdaBoost classification framework where information obtained from visual and infrared bands interactively complement each other. This is achieved by learning weak hypothesis for visual and IR band independently and then fusing the optimized hypothesis sub-ensembles. In addition, an effective feature descriptor is introduced to thermal IR images. Experiments are conducted on a visual and thermal IR image dataset containing 4844 face images in 5 different poses. Results have shown significant increase in classification rate as compared with an existing multi-class AdaBoost algorithm SAMME trained on visual or infrared images alone, as well as a simple baseline classification-fusion algorithm

Image Classification by Multi-Class Boosting of Visual and Infrared Fusion with Applications to Object Pose Recognition

This paper proposes a novel method for multiview object pose classification through sequential learning and sensor fusion. The basic idea is to use images observed in visual and infrared (IR) bands, with the same sampling weight under a multi-class boosting framework. The main contribution of this paper is a multi-class AdaBoost classification framework where visual and infrared information interactively complement each other. This is achieved by learning hypothesis for visual and infrared bands independently and then fusing the optimized hypothesis subensembles. Experiments are conducted on several image datasets including a set of visual and thermal IR images containing 4844 face images in 5 different poses. Results have shown significant increase in classification rate as compared with an existing multi-class AdaBoost algorithm SAMME trained on visual or infrared images alone, as well as a simple baseline classification-fusion algorithm