Robotics Research

Applications: Medical

Medical robotics is the use of intelligent machine technologies in clinical and surgical medicine. Medical robots are set to make a significant impact on the health industry in the near future, with applications in many diverse areas of medicine. Some applications include:

• Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). MIS techniques allow surgeons to use tiny cameras and precisely controlled robotic manipulators to perform surgery with minimal damage to surrounding tissue. This leads to less chance of infection and faster recovery times.
  
• Remote surgery (telesurgery). Using telesurgery, a surgeon can operate on a patient using cameras and robotic tools. This could enable an expert surgeon to perform surgery remotely on a patient who may otherwise be unable to receive it.
  
• Patient monitoring and stabilization. Robotic devices could be very useful in automating various labour intensive monitoring tasks, for example providing feedback control of concentration of chemicals in the bloodstream, pain management, etc.
  
• Patient rehabilitation. Through the use of robotic apparatus such as walking machines, etc. a variety of rehabilitation tasks currently performed by staff could be automated, reducing the workload on hospital staff. Intelligent rehabilitation machines could also allow patients to become independent sooner.
• Medical training. Robotic devices could be used to simulate patients in a variety of situations, allowing students to get practical experience with rare or critical conditions without risking real patients.

Medical Robotics Research in Australia

• Dr Karol Miller at the University of Western Australia has conducting research into mathematical models of soft tissue (brain, liver, etc.), which it is hoped will be of use during robot-assisted surgery where accurate feedback is required and conventional imaging techniques often introduce significant delay.
  
• The Intelligent Systems Research Group at Deakin University has been working on applications of feedback control to patient monitoring, particularly in the areas of glucose regulation in diabetics and oxygen/carbon dioxide tension regulation in the bloodstream of patients under mechanical respiration.
  
• AIMEDICS, a spin-off company from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) has developed HypoMon, a non-invasive monitoring device able to predict the onset of hypoglycaemia in diabetics.