One of the holy grails of robotic surgery is the ability to perform minimally invasive procedures guided by real-time scans from a magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, machine. The problem is the space inside MRI scanners is tight for a person, let alone a person and a robot. What's more, these machines use very strong magnetic fields, so metal is not a good thing to place inside of them, a restriction that is certainly a problem for robots.
Now researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) are developing a MRI-compatible robotic surgery tool that can overcome those limitations. Their system isn't made of metal, but instead has plastic parts and ceramic piezoelectric motors that allow it to work safely inside an MRI.
That area is uncomfortably near other important organs. Let's hope the scale on the monitor is 1:1...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 11 2015, @01:06AM
If I read the article correctly, the goal is to make these things autonomous. Right now, the doctor does the actual needle insertion, but the robot autonomously moves about the MRI chamber to position that needle. Short term goal is to have these things approved for "simple" uses, long term goal is to get them approved for more complex tasks. Ultimately, a doctor can have a coffee in one hand, while he monitors and directs the procedure(s) with the other hand.