Combining near-infrared illuminants to optimize venous imaging

The first and perhaps most important phase of a surgical procedure is the insertion of an intravenous (IV) catheter. Currently, this is performed manually by trained personnel. In some visions of future operating rooms, however, this process is to be replaced by an automated system. We previously presented work for localizing near-surface veins via near-infrared (NIR) imaging in combination with structured light ranging for surface mapping and robotic guidance. In this paper, we describe experiments to determine the best NIR wavelengths to optimize vein contrast for physiological differences such as skin tone and/or the presence of hair on the arm or wrist surface. For illumination, we employ an array of NIR LEDs comprising six different wavelength centers from 740nm to 910nm. We capture imagery of each subject under every possible combination of illuminants and determine the optimal combination of wavelengths for a given subject to maximize vein contrast using linear discriminant analysis.