# BronchoTrack: Airway Lumen Tracking for Branch-Level Bronchoscopic Localization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.12763 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12763/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Feb 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00956/) (2015)
- [LoFTR: Detector-Free Local Feature Matching with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00680/) (2021)
- [YOLOv7: Trainable bag-of-freebies sets new state-of-the-art for real-time object detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02696/) (2022)
- [Simple Online and Realtime Tracking with a Deep Association Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.07402/) (2017)
- [Simple Online and Realtime Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.00763/) (2016)
- [ByteTrack: Multi-Object Tracking by Associating Every Detection Box](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06864/) (2021)
- [ORB-SLAM2: an Open-Source SLAM System for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.06475/) (2016)
- [Performance Measures and a Data Set for Multi-Target, Multi-Camera Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.01775/) (2016)
- [HOTA: A Higher Order Metric for Evaluating Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.07736/) (2020)
- [Deeply-Supervised Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.5185/) (2014)
- [BoT-SORT: Robust Associations Multi-Pedestrian Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14651/) (2022)
- [Towards Real-Time Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12605/) (2019)
- [StrongSORT: Make DeepSORT Great Again](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.13514/) (2022)
- [Understanding the Limitations of CNN-based Absolute Camera Pose Regression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07504/) (2019)
- [Deep Auxiliary Learning for Visual Localization and Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.03642/) (2018)
- [MAT: Motion-Aware Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.04794/) (2020)
- [Alleviating Class-wise Gradient Imbalance for Pulmonary Airway Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11952/) (2020)
- [Augmenting Colonoscopy using Extended and Directional CycleGAN for Lossy Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12473/) (2020)
- [Adversarial Domain Feature Adaptation for Bronchoscopic Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.11798/) (2021)
- [Autonomous Driving in the Lung using Deep Learning for Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.08136/) (2019)
- [OffsetNet: Deep Learning for Localization in the Lung using Rendered Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.05645/) (2018)
- [CDFI: Cross Domain Feature Interaction for Robust Bronchi Lumen Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.09115/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [EndoOmni: Zero-Shot Cross-Dataset Depth Estimation in Endoscopy by Robust Self-Learning from Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05442/) (2024)
- [EndoMamba: An Efficient Foundation Model for Endoscopic Videos via Hierarchical Pre-training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19090/) (2025)
- [PANS: Probabilistic Airway Navigation System for Real-time Robust Bronchoscope Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05554/) (2024)
- [Progressive Curriculum Learning with Scale-Enhanced U-Net for Continuous Airway Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18456/) (2024)
- [BREATH-VL: Vision-Language-Guided 6-DoF Bronchoscopy Localization via Semantic-Geometric Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03713/) (2026)
- [Harnessing Foundation Models for Robust and Generalizable 6-DOF Bronchoscopy Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24249/) (2025)
- [EndoMatcher: Generalizable Endoscopic Image Matcher via Multi-Domain Pre-training for Robot-Assisted Surgery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05205/) (2025)
- [Automated Assessment of Kidney Ureteroscopy Exploration for Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.15988/) (2026)
- [BifDet: A 3D Bifurcation Detection Dataset for Airway-Tree Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.24999/) (2026)
- [BronchoLumen: Analysis of recent YOLO-based architectures for real-time bronchial orifice detection in video bronchoscopy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.11748/) (2026)
- [BronchoTop: Bronchoscopy Navigation via RGB-Only Topological Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28328/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Localizing the bronchoscope in real time is essential for ensuring intervention quality. However, most existing methods struggle to balance between speed and generalization. To address these challenges, we present BronchoTrack, an innovative real-time framework for accurate branch-level localization, encompassing lumen detection, tracking, and airway association.To achieve real-time performance, we employ a benchmark lightweight detector for efficient lumen detection. We are the first to introduce multi-object tracking to bronchoscopic localization, mitigating temporal confusion in lumen identification caused by rapid bronchoscope movement and complex airway structures. To ensure generalization across patient cases, we propose a training-free detection-airway association method based on a semantic airway graph that encodes the hierarchy of bronchial tree structures.Experiments on nine patient datasets demonstrate BronchoTrack's localization accuracy of 85.64 %, while accessing up to the 4th generation of airways.Furthermore, we tested BronchoTrack in an in-vivo animal study using a porcine model, where it successfully localized the bronchoscope into the 8th generation airway.Experimental evaluation underscores BronchoTrack's real-time performance in both satisfying accuracy and generalization, demonstrating its potential for clinical applications.