United States researchers have developed a surgical system that recognises hand gestures as commands to control a robotic scrub nurse.

The ‘vision-based hand gesture recognition’ technology, a concept explored in the Tom Cruise film Minority Report, has been designed to reduce surgery times and decrease the risk of infection.

The system will also tell a computer to display medical images of a patient during an operation.

Purdue University industrial engineering assistant professor Juan Pablo Wachs said while researchers at other institutions have developed robotic scrub nurses with voice recognition, little had been done in the area of gesture recognition.

"Another big difference between our focus and the others is that we are also working on prediction, to anticipate what images the surgeon will need to see next and what instruments will be needed," he said.

The pioneering research is based on a system that uses a new Microsoft camera, called Kinect, that senses three-dimensional spaces, and specialised algorithms that recognise hand gestures as commands to instruct a computer or robot.

Assistant Professor Wachs said the technology coupled with the use of a robotic scrub nurse was a potential new tool that could improve operating-room efficiency.

"While it will be very difficult using a robot to achieve the same level of performance as an experienced nurse who has been working with the same surgeon for years, often scrub nurses have had very limited experience with a particular surgeon," he said.

"(That maximises)…the chances for misunderstandings, delays and sometimes mistakes in the operating room. In that case, a robotic scrub nurse could be better."

Work has now begun to extend and refine the system’s capabilities.