OBJECTIVES

MIDSTEP project objectives are to realise two demonstrators for Telesurgery, one for Telescanning and one for Minimal Invasive Surgery (MIS Laparascopy). The telescanning demonstrator will enable a remote clinician to serve a number of facilities to take a biopsy with the aim of an ultrasound system. The Laparoscopic Ultrasound Telemanipulation demonstrator will allow the performance of ultrasound with surgeons in the operation room and a remote ultrasound radiologist.

MIDSTEP will reach its objectives in a three year research project within the frame of the EC ACTS programme and specifically with the Area 1 “Interactive Digital Multimedia Services”, Task AC 112a “Application-oriented Demonstrators for Remote real-time Telepresence”.

Within this frame, Midstep will contribute to the progress of research and technological development in Telepresence and will focus on the following research areas:

·      audio and video image acquisition and processing, developing user-friendly systems in telepresence environment;

·      virtual reality and perception by the human of the remote environment;

·      robotics;

·      ergonomics and man-machine interfaces for the human operator;

·      standardisation trials and participation to new standards definition;

·      bandwidth requirements for networking, audio and video compression and telecommunication scenario for telepresence;

·      security and safety for processing and communication quality for telemedicine.

MIDSTEP’s European policy objectives are to carry out R&D activity in a large consortium of clinical and industrial partners, to reply to the EC R&D policy as well as to the European Cohesion policy. In fact MIDSTEP results will be tested, validated and implemented as wide as possible over the Community territory; we foresee to operate in central European countries and in some of the peripheral ones, like Portugal and Sweden; this approach will allow us, in a realistic approach, to widely validate our conclusions and as a consequence we will be able to provide to the Commission results on a consistent European scale.

PROJECT ACTIVITY

The overall project workplan covers the following activity:

Task:   User needs  
Objectives: to define the user’s requirements specification for telesurgery in two selected applications, ultrasound telescanning and laparoscopy.

Task:   Functional specifications
Objectives: to define functional specifications for the two demonstrators covering the application areas.

Task:  Demonstrator build
Objectives: to build the two demonstrator systems, each composed of a remote workstation and two local site units with the robotised devices.          

Talk:  Laboratory  validation
Objectives: to verify each of  the two systems in laboratory sites.

Task :  Clinical validation    
Objectives: to carry out extended demonstration patient trials at a cross-section of clinical sites

Task : Exploitation plan
Objectives: to evaluate the economic impact and exploitation opportunity of the demonstrators.

Task: Project management  
Objectives: management of the project and carrying out of the evaluation and the financial monitoring activity.

CONSORTIUM

MIDSTEP consortium is composed by industrial partners, universities and research centres belonging to six UE countries: Italy, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands and Portugal.

The participants are:

Project coordinator:
FINSIEL - I

Clinical Partners:
LA SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY - I
DUNDEE UNIVERSITY - UK
ST. CAThERINA UNIVERSITY - NL
ST. JOAO UNIVERSITY - P
TUBINGEN UNIVERSITY - D

Technical Partners:
FINSIEL - I
ARMSTRONG - UK
UBHT - UK
UMDS - UK     
CEA - F

RESULTS

The activities, carried out during three years, will lead to :

§         Experimentation of telesurgery in laboratory and in real clinical environment   

§         Use of ICT technologies

§         Research in the telemedicine field

The activity will allow to obtain the following results:

§         to demonstrate the feasibility of telesurgery through ATM

§         to analyse and quantify how to improve the operating efficiency of surgeons through better ergonomics

§         to analyse how to provide enhanced care services in remote geographic areas and disaster sites

§         to develop and validate prototypical systems covering the areas of investigation

§         to analyse the cut down of times and costs, as such as the exploitation of prototypes

DELIVERABLES

PUBLICATIONS (Selection)