Professor Robert Wood, a professor at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University and a founding member of the Wyss Bio-Inspired Engineering Institute, recently published a paper on Science Translational Medicine, imagining the future of medical robots.
In science fiction, robots are often portrayed as having human-like intelligence and abilities, and interacting with humans in a natural, anthropomorphic way.
In recent years, robotic core technologies (such as sensors, actuators, control algorithms, and mechanisms) developed by the production of robotic products are affordable and available, and these technologies are penetrating into a variety of medical applications. .
Medical robots are making progress
A typical example of a medical robot is the Da Vinci robot from the Intuitive Surgery Company. The Da Vinci Robot is a multi-arm, remotely controlled minimally invasive surgical tool that has been successfully used in a range of procedures from urology to heart disease. However, despite its impressive installation record, it is too expensive to use outside of large medical centers and institutions.
Now, there is an opportunity to develop new, affordable and affordable machine tools that should be more dexterous and provide additional functionality for doctors. For example, with intelligent, dynamic filling catheters and real-time motion tracking capabilities (such as 3D ultrasound), you don't need to stop the heart to make the heart appear to be stationary to the surgeon, allowing for minimally invasive cardiac surgery.
With a micromanipulator, some neurological or microvascular anastomosis is simpler to complete, and these subtle structures can be safely controlled and manipulated. Finally, you may see steerable needles and endoscopes like tentacle and snakes that help us reach difficult locations in the body. In general, these machine tools utilize the equipped sensors to enable the collaborative controller to work as an extension of the doctor.
Most existing biomedical robots—whether surgical or wearable—are hard. Given the importance of manipulating heavy-duty components during assembly, the initial use of robots is for fast, high-precision, and repetitive motions, so their rigidity is historical. But in addition to bones, most tissues are soft.
This means that hard biomedical robots must rely on accurate sensor feedback and high-performance control systems to ensure patient safety. In other words, a soft robot makes sense. Using polymers to create robots—specifically, model elastomers can be compared to human skin—automatically eliminates many of the safety concerns of human-robot interactions. But it also creates a problem: highly compatible, non-linear materials present challenges in modeling, productivity, and control that can lead to inaccurate motion.
However, the promise of soft robots has spurred an emerging field of cross-materials, mechanical and electrical engineering, and the development of biology that aims to embody the core robotic technology as soft as skin.
Flexible robots have broad prospects
The next generation of wearable robots will use soft materials such as textiles and elastomers to provide a more comfortable, unobtrusive and compatible means of contact with the human body. These robots will increase the function of healthy individuals by improving walking efficiency or increasing grip. In addition, wearable robots will assist patients with physical or neurological diseases. Unlike traditional exoskeles that contain rigid frame elements, these soft systems are worn like clothes, matching natural body movements, and still provide substantial strength and torque when needed.
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