<title>Digital tracking and control of retinal images</title>

Abstract

Laser induced retinal lesions are used to treat a variety of eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and retinal detachment. An instrumentation system has been developed to track a specific lesion coordinate on the retinal surface and provide corrective signals to maintain laser position on the coordinate. High resolution retinal images are acquired via a CCD camera coupled to a fundus camera and video frame grabber. Optical filtering and histogram modification are used to enhance the retinal vessel network against the lighter retinal background. Six distinct retinal landmarks are tracked on the high contrast image obtained from the frame grabber using two-dimensional blood vessel templates. The frame grabber is hosted on a 486 PC. The PC performs correction signal calculations using an exhaustive search on selected image portions. An X and Y laser correction signal is derived from the landmark tracking information and provided to a pair of galvanometer steered mirrors via a data acquisition and control subsystem. This subsystem also responds to patient inputs and the system monitoring lesion growth. This paper begins with an overview of the robotic laser system design followed by implementation and testing of a development system for proof of concept. The paper concludes with specifications for a real time system.