Near-infrared imaging and structured light ranging for automatic catheter insertion

Vein localization and catheter insertion constitute the first and perhaps most important phase of many medical procedures. Currently, catheterization is performed manually by trained personnel. This process can prove problematic, however, depending upon various physiological factors of the patient. We present in this paper initial work for localizing surface veins via near-infrared (NIR) imaging and structured light ranging. The eventual goal of the system is to serve as the guidance for a fully automatic (i.e., robotic) catheterization device. Our proposed system is based upon near-infrared (NIR) imaging, which has previously been shown effective in enhancing the visibility of surface veins. We locate the vein regions in the 2D NIR images using standard image processing techniques. We employ a NIR line-generating LED module to implement structured light ranging and construct a 3D topographic map of the arm surface. The located veins are mapped to the arm surface to provide a camera-registered representation of the arm and veins. We describe the techniques in detail and provide example imagery and 3D surface renderings.