For the development of an optical tracking system for medical applications the EMVA has awarded Benjamin Busam of Framos the annual Young Professional Award. The prize for innovative image processing solutions by young professionals was presented at the 13th EMVA conference in Athens where Busam demonstrated the developed stereo tracking technology to the audience.

Real-time optical tracking system

State-of-the art solutions for position and orientation information in real-time for clinical interventions and diagnostic imaging techniques are bulky and rely on external tracking systems, hampered either by the limited accuracy of electromagnetic tracking or the requirement for a constant line of sight between the tracked devices and the external optical tracking systems respectively. The awarded work presents an adaptable high-resolution tracking system based on stereo computer vision that can be used for real-time tracking applications requiring high accuracy. Technological advantage lies in the ability to overcome current practical difficulties such as line of sight problems while opening the way for further developments of inside-out tracking solutions in the medical domain. The Optical Tracking System facilitates high-precision, real-time pose estimation of tools and objects with a new concept in both hardware and software which operates robustly even in case of partial object occlusion. The system is not only subject to medical applications but is generally applicable for many industrial tasks involving highly accurate robot-guidance, tool-navigation and 3D measurements.

Working for Framos

27-year-old Benjamin Busam works as a development engineer for image processing specialist Framos and holds a Master in Mathematics and is currently a PhD student in computer science with a focus on computer vision at the department of computer science applications in medicine & Augmented Reality at the TU Munich. Benjamin’s work is the basis for developing usable technology specifically for the medical industry and related fields, allowing customised product implementation for Framos.