Soft Touch: Squishy Robots

Currently, remote operated surgical robots are being used fairly commonly to preform simple surgical procedures such as hysterectomies and prostate removals. These robots offer the surgeon increased stability and precision while minimizing invasiveness. They are not, however, without drawbacks. For example, the most widely used robot surgical system, Intuitive Surgical’s ‘da Vinci’ is very expensive- about $2 million. Furthermore a safety concern is raised due to the rigidity of da Vinci’s appendages. Soft Robotics, Inc. seeks to combat both these issues by developing a surgical robot that, as its name suggests, is soft. This ‘squishy’ nature is due to the intuitive design of the bots. They are made from elastomers and controlled by pumping compressed air throughout a network of internal channels. Not only will this design eliminate damage caused by a rigid touch, but it will also drastically cut down on the price of the robot. This is because soft robots can be 3-D printed in a day or two from materials that cost around $20. 

The market for surgical robots is posed to increase dramatically if only a few key issues can be solved. This technology promises to eliminate or at least minimize two of the biggest of these. As bioengineers about to enter the ‘real world’ we should be very interested in such a potential leap in technology.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soft-robotics-biomedical-surgery