Modern Chip-on-Tip Endoscope Integration with the da Vinci Research Kit

Johns Hopkins University | 2025

Overview

Integrate a modern endoscope seamlessly with the da Vinci Research Kit for surgical robotics research.

Description — dVRK-Si using the Modern Endoscope Integration

Technical Details

Figured HDMI-to-USB frame capture devices for endoscope video signal capture and reading
Designed and manufactured adapters to install the endoscope on the dVRK-Si
Deployed a customized video streaming pipeline using v4l2 and gscam to read the endoscope video signal and publish to ROS/ROS2 image topics
Implemented customized kinematic models for the endoscope
Developed customized configuration files for seamless integration with the dVRK-Si

Custom Mechanical Adapters

Before — Custom Endoscope Adapters. Light: Custom Holder for the endoscope. Right: Custom Trocar.

After — Custom Endoscope Adapters. Light: Custom Holder for the endoscope. Right: Custom Trocar.

Image Quality Comparison

Before — Representative frames from the dVRK-Si endoscope (left) and our modern endoscope (right). Brightness settings: dVRK-Si CCU at 100%, ours at 30%. Both frames are captured with similar camera-phantom distances.

After — Representative frames from the dVRK-Si endoscope (left) and our modern endoscope (right). Brightness settings: dVRK-Si CCU at 100%, ours at 30%. Both frames are captured with similar camera-phantom distances.

More details will be added later. Stay tuned!

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