Prototype

Robosurgeon

  • October 2004
  • By Technology Review
   

Accident victims and injured soldiers could be saved at the scene by tiny wheeled robots slipped into their abdomens and controlled by surgeons hundreds of kilometers away. In experiments conducted at the University of Nebraska, the robots carried cameras fitted with light-emitting diodes to illuminate the abdomens of pigs and used radio transceivers to beam back video images. In the field, robots would carry different tools so that surgeons could stop internal bleeding -- the main cause of traumatic death -- by either clamping, clotting, or cauterizing wounds. "We want to perfect a family of little robots that paramedics can insert into a patient through a small incision," says University of Nebraska-Lincoln mechanical engineer Shane Farritor, who is working with Dmitry Oleynikov of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Farritor expects finished prototypes within two years.

 

To read the entire article you must log in:

Most of our content — all daily news, blogs, and videos — is free. Magazine stories are paid. To read this story, you must have a subscription or you must use a reading credit. Registration to Technology Review is free and entitles registrants to three free reading credits.

Username or REGISTER
Password  
   
 
Advertisement

MAGAZINE

Can We Build Tomorrow's Breakthroughs?

Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.

Videos

Meet 2011 TR35 Winner Jesse Robbins

More

Technology Review Lists

TR50

Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:

Toyota

Novomer

1366 Technologies

Suntech

More

Advertisement

Facebook

Advertisement