2017

The project’s objective is to develop, test and validate a new, highly accurate surgical navigator that uses an innovative visor that can provide the surgeon with the vision of the operating theatre, including specific information related to the patient and more general information related to the organs involved in the operation.

UNIPI selected Pilotfish to complete the industrial design of VOSTARS’s head-mounted display (HMD) based on Pilotfish’s extensive industrial and user experience design expertise within the medical technology markets. VOSTARS was especially aware of a thesis, written in 2013 by Killian Kreiser, then an intern and later a member of Pilotfish’s team, that showcased an HMD visor that helped surgeons simulate, plan, navigate and analyse medical interventions using augmented reality.

This was an extremely challenging but exiting project, and the Pilotfish team successfully designed and produced a series of proof of concepts in collaboration with the VOSTARS consortium partners. Tests by surgeons at the UNIBI in Bologna, Charité University Hospital in Berlin and Sankt Gertrauden Hospital in Berlin show us the way that we will prepare, plan  and operate in the near future. For VOSTARS’s ongoing clinical trials, they are focussing on maxillofacial surgery, neurosurgery and orthopaedic surgery.

Due to the promising test results, the consortium partners are exploring the feasibility of bringing the VOSTARS HMD 2.0 to the market. This includes talking with strategic partners, specialists, investors and hospitals.