A Rapid Temporal Bone Localization Method Based on Machine Visual Detection Markers

The number of hearing-impaired people is increasing year by year; robotic cochlear drilling surgery is one of the safest methods to treat deafness. Looking at the issue of low efficiency of temporal bone posture positioning in cochlear implantation robotic drilling, a novel auxiliary ring marker temporal bone positioning method was proposed to improve temporal bone posture positioning efficiency, optimize the operation time, and reduce auxiliary injuries caused by the surgery. First, the temporal bone visual positioning assistant ring was designed based on the requirements for cochlear robotic drilling surgery. The target detection was conducted on the auxiliary ring and image processing and feature point extraction methods were designed. Then, the three-dimensional coordinates of the measured feature points were obtained by binocular vision, and the auxiliary ring and temporal bone postures were estimated. Finally, the auxiliary ring and temporal bone localization methods were validated. The experiment results indicated that the temporal bone was located quickly and effectively in a total time of about 33 ms, which was faster and more accurate than traditional visual localization methods and could satisfy real-time temporal bone localization during surgery. This study can reduce the time of temporal bone visual positioning in cochlear implant drilling operations, greatly improving the robot’s capabilities to extract visual information during the operation, which has a better auxiliary role for future research and applications of the cochlear implant drilling operation.