Method and system for qualifying a surgical clip applier

A system for qualifying a surgical clip applier, the surgical clip applier being loaded with a plurality of surgical clips and having a working tip, said system comprising

• a support frame used to hold and position the surgical clip applier;
• a rotatable clip-receiving disk disposed under and adjacent to the working tip of the surgical clip applier, said clip-receiving disk having a top surface that is formed with a plurality of angularly equidistant radial recesses;
• a driving unit configured to drive, in response to each of a number (N+1) of continuous firing operations of the surgical clip applier, said clip-receiving disk to rotate in a manner that one of said radial recesses adjacent to the working tip of the surgical clip applier moves to be aligned with the working tip of the surgical clip applier so as to receive anything ejected from the working tip of the surgical clip applier due to the firing operation of the surgical clip applier, the number (N) being not greater than the number of the surgical clips loaded in the surgical clip applier and the number of said radial recesses in said clip-receiving disk;
• an image capture unit connected electrically to said driving unit, mounted to said support frame and disposed above said top surface of said clip-receiving disk, said image capture unit being controlled by said driving unit to capture, in response to each of second to (N+1)th ones of the successive firing operations of the surgical clip applier, a sampling image associated with a corresponding one of said radial recesses that has been previously aligned with and is currently adjacent to the working tip of the surgical clip applier so as to obtain a number (N) of the sampling images associated respectively with the corresponding ones of said radial recesses;
• and
• a processing unit connected electrically to said image capture unit for receiving the sampling images therefrom, said processing unit being configured to
• determine whether each of the sampling images contains only an individual target image portion indicative of a single surgical clip ejected from the working tip of the surgical clip applier and received in a respective one of said radial recesses in said clip-receiving disk,
• upon determining that each of the sampling images contains the individual target image portion, obtain, based on the individual target image portion of each of the sampling images, a characteristic parameter that is associated with the surgical clip received in the respective one of the racial recesses, and
• verify the qualification of the surgical clip applier based on a predetermined specification and the characteristic parameters, which are obtained respectively from the target image portions of the sampling images.