US Patent 10945796 Robotic control of surgical instrument visibility

A robot guiding system employing a robot unit (10) including an endoscope (12) and a robot (11), and a control unit (20) including an endoscopic image controller (22) and a robot controller (21). In operation, the endoscope (12) generate an endoscopic image of an anatomical region as the robot (11) move the endoscope (12) within the anatomical region in response to robot actuator commands. The endoscopic image controller (22) controls a display of the endoscopic image (14) of the anatomical region and generates endoscope pose commands to maintain a visibility of two or more interventional instruments within the display of the endoscopic image (14) relative to a center of the endoscopic image (14). The robot controller (21) generates the robotic actuator commands responsive to the endoscope pose commands.