Imagine a tiny snake-shaped robot crawling through your body,helping a surgeon identify diseases and perform operations. It'snot science fiction. Scientists and doctors are using the creepingmetallic tools to perform surgery on hearts, prostate cancer andother diseased organs. The snakebots carry tiny cameras, scissors, forceps and even moreadvanced sensors are in the works. For now, they're powered bytethers that humans control. But experts say the day is coming whensome robots will roam the body on their own. "It won't be very long before we have robots that are nanobots,meaning they will actually be inside the body without tethers,"said Michael Argenziano, the chief of adult cardiac surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Centerin New York. 'It's like the ability to have little hands inside the patients.' Michael Argenziano, cardiac surgeon Argenziano was involved with some of the first U.S. Food and DrugAdministration clinical trials on robotic heart surgery more than10 years ago. Now, he says snake robots have become a commonly usedtool that gives surgeons a whole new perspective. "It's like the ability to have little hands inside the patients, asif the surgeon had been shrunken and was working on the heartvalve," he said. But Argenziano and experts in robotics say the new creations workbest when they're designed for very specific tasks. "The robot is a tool," he said. "It is no different in that sensethan a scalpel. It's really a master-slave device." Robots reduce costs of surgery Howie Choset has been researching and building robots, particularlysnake robots, at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University for years.Choset believes that his snake robot and others like it help reducemedical costs by making complex surgeries faster and easier. Chosetsays his new design is smaller and more flexible than earliermodels: the diameter of the head is less than the size of a dime. The size of surgical robots allows surgeons to operate with farless damage to the body, helping the patient heal faster. Forexample, instead of opening the entire chest up during heartsurgery, a small incision is made, and the robot crawls inside tothe proper spot. Ashutosh Tewari of Cornell University Medical Center has usedrobotic tools to perform thousands of prostate operations. He saidthe precision of the tiny robotic tool is vital not just to cuttingout cancerous tumors, but to seeing exactly what nerves to leaveintact. Tewari said he's most excited about the potential for surgicalrobots to do things humans can't do. He said the variety of sensorsavailable for surgical robots keeps expanding, even as they getsmaller. He said they may one day be able to test chemicals or blood in thebody, or even the electrical connections in nerves. Choset has also built larger snake robots designed for search andrescue, or just exploration. They can climb poles or trees and thenlook around through a camera in the head, and slither throughplaces humans can't reach. "We sent our snake robots into these caves off the coast of the RedSea to look for evidence of ancient Egyptian ships," he said. "Tome archaeology is like search and rescue, but everyone's been deadfor 5,000 years," reducing the pressure. Limited to 1 or 2 tasks Another expert at Carnegie Mellon stresses that there's still anenormous gap between humans and even the most high-tech robots. Manuela Velosa noted that robots have been built that excel at oneor two tasks but not at the variety of tasks humans perform withouteven thinking. Velosa has been building robots that ask humans for help when theydon't know what to do, as well as teams of robots that play socceragainst each other. Sometimes, the robots surprise her. During one soccer game againstrobots from another university, the Carnegie Mellon team scored ona particular play. That sent a positive signal to the robot'scomputers, which are designed to reward success and discouragefailures in the game. Her robots then tried the play again and scored again. It turnedout they had discovered a programming flaw in the other team ofrobots, just like some sports teams find a flaw in their opponents. In the second half, Velosa's robot's kept using the same play,scoring every time and thus reinforcing the tendency to try theplay over and over. The robots crushed the other team. "It was programmed by me, but it looked to me as if they learned,"she said. "I believe we are much closer to having robots be able tocoexist with humans. The beautiful thing is you see the robotslearning.". We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Sliding Seat Manufacturer , Turnover Mechanism Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Sliding Seat.
Related Articles -
Sliding Seat Manufacturer, Turnover Mechanism Manufacturer,
|