Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Sony have created a mini-RCM surgical robot that is much smaller than similar devices. When creating it, scientists were inspired by origami (the Japanese art of folding paper figures). The robot is about the size of a tennis ball and weighs about the same as a penny.
Wyss associate professor Robert Wood and Sony engineer Hiroyuki Suzuki built a mini-RCM using manufacturing technology developed in Wood's lab. It consists in the fact that the materials are superimposed on each other, and then cut by a laser so that they can form a three-dimensional shape - like a children's folding book. Three linear actuators control the movements of the mini-RCM in different directions.
In testing, the researchers found that the mini-RCM is 68% more accurate than a hand-operated instrument. The robot has also successfully performed a simulated procedure in which a surgeon inserts a needle into the eye to "deliver medicine into tiny veins in the fundus." The Mini-RCM was able to puncture a silicone tube that mimics a retinal vein about twice the size of a hair without damaging it.
Due to its small size, the mini-RCM robot is much easier to install than many other surgical robots, some of which take up an entire room. It is also easier to remove from the patient if any complications would arise during the procedure. The timing of the appearance of mini-RCM in operating rooms is not yet known.
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Source: 3dnews.ru