An electronic endoscope (10) and a processor (11) of an electronic endoscope apparatus (2) transmit and receive signals via radio waves within a predetermined frequency band to which plural channels are allocated. The electronic endoscope has a transmission frequency band switching circuit (42) which switches between a first and second transmission frequency bands, and a first channel detection circuit (43) for detecting an available channel. The processor has a reception frequency band switching circuit (62) which switches between a first and second receptionfrequency bands,and a second channel detection circuit (63) for detecting an available channel. The transmission and reception frequency band switching circuits automatically switch the transmission and reception frequency bands according to detection results of the first and second channel detection circuits.

Electronic endoscope apparatus

A multi-camera endoscope which includes an elongated shaft terminating with a tip section turnable by way of a bending section, wherein the tip section includes: a front-pointing camera and a discrete front illuminator associated therewith; a front fluid injector configured for cleaning at least one of said front-pointing camera and said discrete front illuminator; a side-pointing camera and a discrete side illuminator associated therewith; a side fluid injector configured for cleaning at least one of said side-pointing camera and said discrete side illuminator; a working channel configured for insertion of a surgical tool; and a pathway fluid injector for inflating and/or cleaning a body cavity into which the endoscope is inserted.

Multi-camera endoscope

Endoscopes are well known devices used for examining surfaces contained within an enclosed cavity. Typical applications for these devices are the examination of tissues within human body cavities or mechanical components contained within engine compartments. An endoscopic apparatus for measuring blood flow contained within an enclosed body cavity is claimed. Such apparatus comprises an electromagnetic radiation source for emitting a coherent beam, an optical relay system for propagating the beam down an endoscopic probe to illuminate a target within an enclosed cavity, an endoscopic optical relay system for capturing the reflected light and transmitting an image of the illuminated region onto the surface of a two-dimensional image sensor, an analog to digital conversion device for capturing analog output signals from the image sensor for conversion to digital format, a display device for immediate visual display of captured images, a method for calculating flow values from a captured digital image containing speckle structure information of the laser illuminated surface, a memory device for storing digital blood flow images, and a display device for immediate visual display of color coded, blood flow images.

Motion measuring device

A projection display system (10) may be mechanically perturbed to remove or reduce speckle. In addition, pixellation effects may also be removed or reduced. By mechanically disturbing a portion of the system, for example using a wobble perturbation, the speckle effects may be temporally smeared so that they become invisible to the user. In one embodiment of the present invention, a folding mirror (16) may be mechanically perturbed, using a plurality of piezoelectric actuators (18), at frequencies in the ultrasonic range.

Mechanically oscillated projection display

There is provided herein a flexible electronic circuit board for a tip section of a multi- camera endoscope, the circuit board comprising a front camera surface configured to carry a forward looking camera, a first side camera surface configured to carry a first side looking camera, a second side camera surface configured to carry a second side looking camera, one or more front illuminator surfaces a configured to carry one or more front illuminators to essentially illuminate the FOV of the forward looking camera, one or more side illuminator surfaces configured to carry one or more side illuminators to essentially illuminate the FOV of the first side looking camera and one or more side illuminator surfaces configured to carry one or more side illuminators to essentially illuminate the FOV of the second side looking camera.

Flexible electronic circuit board for a multi-camera endoscope

An output video signal is derived from an input video signal generated by an image sensor in response to an image formed on only part of the image sensor. The output video signal is derived in response to only the portion of the input video signal generated by the part of the image sensor on which the image is formed. The input video signal additionally includes a portion generated by the part of the image sensor on which the image is not formed. An image signal generating apparatus is provided in which the image sensor is mounted, and which includes a detachably-attached image-forming device. When attached to the image signal generating apparatus, the image-forming device forms the image on the part of the image sensor. A frame of the input video signal is received from the image sensor. The frame of the input video signal has a structure and includes an image portion generated by the part of the image sensor on which the image is formed, and an external portion generated by the part of the image sensor on which the image is not formed. The image portion of the frame of the input video signal is identified, and the identified image portion is extracted from the frame of the input video signal to provide the image portion of a frame of the output signal which has a frame structure substantially similar to the frame structure of the input video signal.

Michael P. Buchin

Papers

Video imaging system with image processing optimized for small-diameter endoscopes