MEDEA: Microscanning endoscope with diagnostic and enhanced resolution attributes

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 97.0466

Key words (English)

Endoscope; laser scanning; MEMS

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: BMH4972399

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 4.2 Agriculture and agroindustry

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Univ. Athens, ISIT, Univ. Tübingen, SSUP, LMZ

Abstract (English)

Medea project aims at implementing a functional prototype of an enhanced-resolution endoscope using laser scanning techniques. Three laser beams illuminate the targeted tissue in a raster form via two orthogonal micro-mirrors. These micro-mirrors, developed with MEMS technology, are used for the scanning of the illuminating and backscattered beams, respectively.
The backscattered light is detected by photodetectors after wavelength separation. The output signals from the three corresponding photodetection modules are digitized using a high-speed data acquisition board that resides in a high-end personal computer. The acquired signals yield the two-dimension pictures after synchronization with the scanning process.
The acquired temporal sequence of images are preprocessed and then displayed on a high- resolution color monitor. At the same time it will be stored in a hard disk for further processing. A preprocessing software improve the quality of the collected images and will correct for distortions from different sources. The image information is enhanced using appropriate signal processing techniques.
The participation of the EPFL (lOA: Institute of Applied Optics) in the Medea project has taken place mainly in the second and third year of the project and comported two parts. The first contribution to the project by lOA concerned the analysis of the quality of the scanned images. To quantify the image quality of an optical system, the MTF or Modulation Transfer Function has been measured. This method yields a direct and quantitative measurement of the image quality. The second contribution aimed at developing an optical system for tissue characterization, which could be integrated to the endoscope. A method, previously developed at lOA and based on the analysis of the diffuse reflectance signal has been evaluated.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 97.0466