ADVANCES IN ROBOTIC TECHNIQUES

1. Robotics in Medicine

There have been a number of reports in this section of the progress being made in applying robotic techniques to medical processes. High on the list of achievements in this area have been the attempts to help in surgical operations. Already reports here have dealt with improved aids for surgeons with increased facilities for viewing and of producing images of the patient's progress. Indeed, operations assisted by links with remote centres of expertise and with internet information databanks are no longer unusual. All of these facilities and devices have been, in the main, aids to the operating medical staff but automated surgery still remains a remote goal, although there are many experimental systems in existence. From the Pennsylvania Hershey Medical Centre, USA, however, comes a report of a truly robotic heart surgeon called Zeus. On this occasion it appears that Zeus is not some robotics researchers speculative design for an automated medical robot but a working system that is starting its medical trials in a real-life hospital.