Project COMPASS for a better OP navigation started

The project COMPASS, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) was launched in September 2018. The aim is to develop a cooperative immersive assistance system for minimally invasive surgery, which improves intraoperative surgical navigation and optimizes the surgical workflow.

Minimally invasive surgery with endoscopes has become the medical standard. It promises a fast and complication-free healing. However, the limited field of view, also called keyhole surgery, and the navigation and orientation outside of it pose great challenges to technology and surgeon. The intraoperative COMPASS assistance system should change this in the future.

The COMPASS system is intended to recognize the navigation process of the surgeon through comprehensible, immersive visualization and interaction, to navigate the surgeon in an anticipatory manner and to accompany him through the surgical procedure. Images of a 3D endoscope are used to create an "anatomical map" of the patient. On this, distinctive anatomical regions, risk structures, directional guidelines and information on the surgical steps are entered and adjusted according to the endoscope position. The surgeon navigates through the patient's body and interacts with the surgical navigation system to receive information. The procedures are being developed with clinical partners in Leipzig and Munich for sinus surgery and laparoscopy. Overall, eight partners from the fields of research and industry contribute to the results.