Category: Robotics

Robotic gynecologic surgery provides surgeons a greater range of motion and precision

Robotic surgeries in healthcare are not new, especially in the field of gynecology. In 2005, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of robotic surgery for gynecological procedures. When both medication and non-invasive procedures fail to treat gynecological disorder symptoms, doctors recommend surgery. Robotic Gynecologic Surgery stays the acknowledged and best treatment for most gynecological conditions such as cervical cancer, excessive uterine bleeding, uterine fibroids, and more.

Before robotic surgery, surgeons sometimes used to held cameras in their hands, which means they could shake or gradually move. Now, the specialist can get a 3-D perspective on the activity site and the video is steady all through the process. Control has likewise improved with robotic technology. This allows surgeons to work normally and instinctively which can prompt better outcomes and speed up the process. It also helps to reduce the risk of blood loss and quicker recovery.

Researchers from Purdue University have developed magnetic ‘millirobots’ which can climb slopes, move against a current, and deliver substances to rodent neural tissue with great precision.

The study investigated how the robots – ‘Magnetically Aligned Nanorods In Alginate CapsuleS’ (aka ‘Maniacs’) – could perform as drug delivery vehicles inside the body. It found that, when controlled using a magnetic field, the robots can move against fluid flow, climb slopes and move through neural tissue, such as the spinal cord, to deposit substances at precise locations.

Disease in the central nervous system can be very difficult to treat. Lamar Mair of Weinberg Medical Physics, which partnered with the academics on the study, explained: “Delivering drugs orally or intravenously, for example, to target cancers or neurologic diseases, may affect regions of the body and nervous system that are unrelated to the disease. Targeted drug delivery may lead to improved efficacy and reduced side-effects due to lower off-target dosing.”

by Chinese Association of Automation

Cardiac surgeons may be able to better plan operations and improve their surgical field view with the help of a robot. Controlled through a virtual reality parallel system as a digital twin, the robot can accurately image a patient through ultrasound without the hand cramping or radiation exposure that hinder human operators. The international research team published their method in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica.

“Intra-operative ultrasound is especially useful, as it can guide the surgery by providing real-time images of otherwise hidden devices and anatomy,” said paper author Fei-Yue Wang, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Management and Control of Complex Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. “However, the need for highly specialized skills is always a barrier for reliable and repeatable acquisition.”

Wang noted that the availability of onsite sonographers can be limited, and that many procedures requiring intra-operative ultrasound also often require X-ray imaging, which could expose the operator to harmful radiation. To mitigate these challenges, Wang and his team developed a platform for robotic intra-operative trans-esophageal echocardiography (TEE), an imaging technique widely used to diagnose heart disease and guide cardiac surgical procedures.

Handle’s descendant Stretch finds the company making a big play for logistics

Brian Heater

Boston Dynamics’ transitionfrom a decades-long research robotics firm to a company that productizes and sells hardware has been a fascinating one to watch. There have been some tough lessons along the way, including the very real lesson that at the end of the day, most robots in the world will be deployed for mundane tasks.

Sure, the company will continue to court the public with fun viral videos of its technology dancing to the oldies, but when it comes to actually selling robotics, the targets continue to be the dull, dirty and dangerous jobs we humans just don’t want to do. Or, as I’ve been putting it for a while now, robotics are — more often than not — cool technology performing decidedly uncool tasks.

Spot has found most of its success as an inspection robot. The quadruped has been deployed to oil rigs, nuclear plants and other places where most people would rather limit their time, given a choice. That takes care of the dangerous part of the three Ds, and you could make a reasonable argument that the company’s second commercially available robot is going after the dull bit.

By Brian Heater

“It seems quite odd that no one has built the SpaceX equivalent for the ocean,” Anthony DiMare tells TechCrunch. “There’s no big, modern technology company that fits the space yet.”

DiMare cofounded Bedrock Ocean Exploration last year, with Charles Chiau. The latter brought a depth of robotics expertise to the space, while DiMare has experience with the oceans. His previous company, Nautilus Labs, which specialized in ocean fleet logistical planning, raised an $11 million Series A back 2019.

After leaving the startup, DiMare says he met up with Chiau at a San Francisco diner, where the pair discussed the challenges and opportunities in mapping the ocean floor. Today Bedrock is announcing that it has raised an $8 million seed round led by Eniac Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, Quiet Capital and R7.

The company notes that more than 80% of the ocean remains unmapped. And those parts are often at fairly low resolution. As the CEO puts it in a press release tied this morning’s news, “A far greater percentage of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars have been mapped and studied than our own ocean floor has.”

By sensing the subtle changes in the finger’s own magnetic field, this new technology could one day make for ultra-sensitive prosthetic hands.

By MATT SIMON

IMAGINE, IF YOU will, the home robot of the future. It picks clutter off the floor, sweeps, and does the dishes. And it has to do so  perfectly: If the robot has an error rate of just 1 percent, it will drop one dish out of a hundred. Totally unacceptable. In no time, your floor would be covered in shards and the robot would get stuck in a sad, vicious feedback loop, dropping dishes and sweeping them up and dropping more dishes, ad infinitum.

To avoid this domestic nightmare, engineers will have to give robots a keen sense of touch. And for that, the machines will need fingertips, perhaps like the one recently described in the journal Science Robotics. It feels in a decidedly nonhuman way, by sensing the subtle changes in the finger’s own magnetic field, and it could one day make for ultra-sensitive prosthetic hands and robots that don’t maim tableware (or people) because they can’t control their grasp.

You, a human, can feel pressures and textures with your fingertips, thanks to specialized sensory cells in the skin called mechanoreceptors. These, along with the nervous system at large, translate mechanical information from the environment into signals your brain can comprehend as the perception of “touch.” Combined with thermoreceptors (which sense temperature) and nociceptors (which sense pain), you’re able to manipulate the world around you without hurting yourself.