Surgical robotics: A look-back of latest advancement and bio-inspired ways to tackle existing challenges

Abstract

This article is dedicated to present a review on existing challenges and latest developments in surgical robotics in attempts to overcome the obstacles lying behind. Rather than to perform an exhaustive evaluation, we would emphasize more on the new insight by digesting the emerging bio-inspired surgical technologies with potentials to revolutionize the field. Typical approaches, possible applications, advantages and technical challenges were discussed. Evolutions of surgical robotics and future trends were analyzed. It can be found that, the major difficulties in the field of surgical robots may not be properly addressed by only using conventional approaches. As an alternative, bio-inspired methods or materials may shed light on new innovations. While endeavors to deal with existing strategies still need to be made, attentions should be paid to also borrow ideas from nature.

Keywords

minimally invasive surgery / surgical robotics / haptic feedback / miniaturization / bio-inspiration / bionics

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg