Surgical robot

Robotic surgical systems such as the da Vinci X are very impressive, with their two arms that are controlled by the surgeon's two hands. An experimental new system takes things even further, though, by adding two more arms controlled by the user's feet.

When someone has experienced a stroke, they may require a surgical procedure known as an endovascular intervention. A new MIT-designed robotic system could ensure that they receive the treatment quickly, even if the physician is nowhere nearby.

Researchers at MIT have developed a handheld robot that can help minimally trained responders to control severe internal bleeding in victims of traumatic injury, by helping them insert a needle and catheter into a major blood vessel.

While robotic laparoscopic surgical systems do make certain procedures safer and less invasive, those systems are still operated by human surgeons. Now, however, a surgical robot has performed a delicate operation entirely on its own.

A new tennis-ball-sized machine developed in a Harvard-Sony collaboration could open up some interesting new pathways in the field of robot-assisted surgery, with the ability to handle delicate tasks on a microscopic scale.

A delicate procedure called supermicrosurgery requires a high-level of expertise by surgeons, but they may soon have a new robotic tool at their disposal called Musa, which has performed its first round of procedures with great success.

Be it fear of striking nerves, major veins or arteries, doctors performing cranial surgery must take great care over many hours. But a new drilling robot built at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) could help lighten the load.