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Camera control
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01/07/2008
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In collaboration with engineers from Given Imaging, the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg and Imperial College in London, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering have developed a control system for the camera pill.
“In future,” says IBMT team leader Dr Frank Volke, “doctors will be able to stop the camera in the oesophagus, move it up and down and turn it, and thus adjust the angle of the camera as required. This allows them to make a precise examination of the junction between the oesophagus and the stomach.”
The camera is controlled using a magnetic device roughly the size of a bar of chocolate. The doctor can hold it in his hand during the examination and move it up and down the patient’s body. “The camera inside follows this motion precisely,” says Volke.
The steerable camera pill consists of a camera, a transmitter that sends the images to the receiver, a battery and several cold light diodes. One prototype of the camera pill has already passed its first practical test in the human body and researchers demonstrated that the camera can be kept in the oesophagus for about ten minutes, even if the patient is sitting upright.
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Author
Graham Pitcher
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