To make use of force feedback, it needs some form of reference to let it know when the tiny robot hands are dangerously close to a surface it shouldn't be touching, like a perfectly fine blood vessel. At first, the engineers thought about using CT scans to provide this reference, but they decided it would be better to use a depth camera for more precision.

To address that problem, graduate engineering student Fredrik Ryden developed software that uses Kinect to create three-dimensional maps of a patient's innards. This can now provide better-detailed references for use in robot-assisted surgeries.

"It's really good for demonstration because it's so low-cost, and because it's really accessible," Ryden, who designed the system during one weekend, said. "You already have drivers, and you can just go in there and grab the data. It's really easy to do fast prototyping because Microsoft's already built everything." If not for Kinect, the project would have cost them about US$ 50,000.

With the three-dimensional maps, the engineers will also be able to distinguish surfaces, identify danger zones, and calibrate the surgical instruments so that they will not be able to go where they're not supposed to.

They're not out of the woods yet, though. They still need to updgrade the video resolution and scale the sensors down to the precision needed for surgery. In any case, it sounds very promising, especially when you consider your life may be saved thanks partially to a gaming camera.

The Daily UW [via Kotaku]

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