Medical Electronics
to locate bone points exactly. After that, the vision system knows exactly where the bone is while it’s cutting.
Then, to make it all work, the right data has to get to the right place at the right time. The vision system communicates where the bone is, even if it’s moving. The surgeon controls when and how fast to cut. The robot uses those to execute a perfect cut along the pre-planned angle. This is all automated so it can even be done remotely, even with the surgeon thousands of miles away. It’s a bold new intelligent world.
The knee-replacement robot essentially copies how surgeons work, but with better accuracy and precision. Increasing evidence shows that the results of robotic joint replacement are better (1)
through the chest into the lung and suck out a sample for analysis. But this has all sorts of problems. The needle goes through the skin into the lung, so bacteria can get in, risking infection. You have to puncture the lung, risking a pneumothorax (collapsed lung). It’s very hard to know where the needle actually is, so you need to run continuous X-rays (fluoroscope) and “poke around” a bit to find the right spot. It can work, but it’s messy, slow, risky, and expensive.
. The robotic surgery
in these studies improved implant positioning, alignment, and ligament balance. General-purpose robots can extend human capabilities in other ways. Robotic technology can enhance a surgeon’s environment with high-resolution 3D monitors, four robotic arms, and automatically-changeable tools. Connecting those through intelligent computing lets the surgeon measure anatomical structures to millimetre precision, generate “tags” for landmarks and training, and even monitor potential accidental injuries. The robot + surgeon system improves operating-room capability, communication, and outcomes.
Some robots can perform operations that a human cannot do. For instance, consider the problem of a lung biopsy. The current way to do a biopsy is to take a long needle, poke it
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Now imagine instead that you have a robot that looks like a long thin tube about the thickness of a USB cable. It’s steerable with a simple controller. You can see through fibre optic video cable. When you get to the suspected tumour, a quick suction tube takes a sample. This tube robot makes no punctures, risks no infection or lung damage, and makes the procedure safer, faster, and more accurate. No human can match that.
These are only a few of the hundreds of new-generation medical robots. The variety is incredible. A laparoscope robot folds up to go through a hole the size of a dime, then unfolds into a praying-mantis-like device with eyes and hands. Another looks like two very dextrous snakes with gripper heads. Jointed arms, tiny grippers on sticks, human-like dual-armed systems, under-the-skin grippers, and more will soon populate operating rooms. Fletcher Spaght Inc. (FSI), an analyst in the industry, tracks over 200 robotic-assisted surgery products (2)
in various stages of
development. Each is designed to perform precision motions in ways that humans cannot match. Medical robots will soon change nearly
References (1)
(2)
https://surgery.international/studies-show-benefits-of-robotic-assisted-joint-replacement-surgery/
https://www.fletcherspaght.com/2022-ras-review
Components in Electronics November 2024 21
every procedure in the operating room. Equally important, many of these systems will soon leverage AI. Applications include before (pre-op), during (intra-op), and after (post-op) the surgery. Pre-op, AI can help surgeons train for the specific challenge, model the patient, and develop custom process and implants. Closer to the surgery, AI can speed setup, making sure the patient and equipment are properly placed and calibrated. It can also help align images such as CT scans to the actual patient, ensuring accurate operation.
During the procedure, AI can increase accuracy, enforce safety, and improve efficiency. For instance, smart robots can verify measurements, guide the robotic motion, and flag potential unsafe steps. Smart tools can automate some of the routine-but-slow steps like staple placement and suturing. Increasingly, the robot can also use AI to coordinate the operation with other devices in the operating theatre like patient monitoring and anaesthesiology. After the operation, AIs will improve both operations and patient outcomes. Automated systems can more closely monitor patients, analyse operational effectiveness, and even predict outcomes for early intervention. In summary, surgical systems of tomorrow will teem with hundreds of types of robots. They won’t be just mechanical motion replicators, they will use AI to assist care
teams in performing more accurate, faster, less invasive operations. They will fill every niche of surgery, adapting exactly to each procedure’s challenges and needs. Every operation can be customized to fit each patient’s unique condition and needs. The environment is incredibly fertile: Imaging, compute power, sensing, intelligence, software architecture, and mechanical design are all at inflection points, forming a truly unique junction. These new applications are enabled by the availability of data, or more accurately, by data flow. An approach to real-world software architecture called “data centricity” delivers the right data to the right place at the right time. Data centricity makes it easy to feed sensor data to intelligent algorithms and from there to the motors that perform the actions. Data is the key to intelligence in all types of AI. But data flow is the key to that intelligence in the real world of sensors, motors, robots, instruments, and people. Thus, data flow is the key to the future of patient care. The moment is right for medical robotics to expand in many directions. Advanced computing, intelligence, imaging, mechanical design, advanced motors, sensing, and software architecture are all combining into fertile ground for innovation. These systems are smarter and better. And they are almost all the first of their kind.
The Robotic Cambrian Explosion is here.
https://www.rti.com/
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