The data-acquisition, processing and control system of a micromirror-based laser-scanning endoscope

A novel endoscope device has been developed based on a new technology of laser scanning using silicon micromirrors for superior resolution and chromatic representation compared with the existing endoscopes. A critical part of this device, that is reported here, is the data- acquisition, control and processing (DACP) system which acquires, processes, displays, stores in real-time the collected images and handles the control signals. The software developed uses the multithreading technology for the parallel execution of specific software tasks in the available CPUs of the multiprocessing system employed. In this manner, the necessary computational power is provided for the realization of a high-performance realtime imaging system. First-trial results are also given.