Surgical Robotics

Abstract- The recent introduction of surgical robotics into the operating room offers a significant breakthrough in the way surgery is conducted. It combines technological and clinical breakthroughs in developing new robotic systems and surgical techniques to improve the quality and outcome of surgery. These breakthroughs are based on more than a decade of innovation in the field of robotics in both academia and industry. The scope of this chapter covers the fundamental concepts and approaches utilized in surgical robotics. The surgeon – robot interface along with the robot – patient interface are defined and used for classifying the various surgical robotic systems. Topics such as soft tissue biomechanics, teleoperation, haptics, Time delay, indexing, motion compensation and scaling, image guided surgery, and objective assessment of skill are covered. A detailed review of seven FDA approved and commercially available systems is presented in terms of the clinical procedure conducted by each robot along with the associated problems and needs, as well as the system architecture. The chapter is concluded by describing trends and future directions such as reduction of the system size that leads to minimizing the impact on the surrounding tissues and improving the human machine interaction that may lead to semi-autonomous operations. The revolutionary process involved with the introduction of surgical robotics system into the operating room is still in its infancy. It is anticipated that the number of operations conducted with surgical robotics will continue to grow and the field as a whole will have a profound impacts on surgical outcomes and human health