robot-assisted surgery Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

How IP protection is enabling robotic surgery innovation

Vicarious Surgical has been generating buzz in the robotic surgery space, but none of it would happen if IP protection wasn’t shielding the value of its technology.

[Beta 2 image courtesy of Vicarious Surgical]

Count Vicarious Surgical among a group of relatively young surgical robotics companies seeking to innovate and make a difference in a space that has been dominated by Intuitive. Vicarious’ technology uses proprietary human-like surgical robots combined with 3D visualization to transport surgeons inside the patient to perform minimally invasive surgery.

Vicarious Surgical CEO Adam Sachs announced on his latest earnings call that the Waltham, Massachusetts–based company has completed the design of its Beta 2 robotic surgery platform. It’s beginning the integration phase of the build, and the company has inked center of excellence agreements with the nationwide HCA Healthcare as well as University Hospitals…

Smith+Nephew expands reach of its Cori handheld robotic system

The Cori system includes a handheld cutting tool that has a robotic feature that automatically halts the spinning of the tool’s burr if it’s outside a digitally “painted” area. [Image from Smith+Nephew]

A year after Smith+Nephew (NYSE:SNN) launched its Cori handheld robotic system in the U.S., the ortho surgery system has launched globally.

The British medtech giant has expanded Cori’s reach to Europe, Australia and New Zealand, India, and Canada (just announced today). The company yesterday said the system was now available for use in the U.K.’s National Health Service.

Get the full story on our sister site MassDevice.

Could artificial intelligence boost surgical robotics to new heights?

Goldberg and his team trained a da Vinci surgical robot to automatically perform peg transfer slightly faster and more accurately than an experienced surgical resident. [Image courtesy of the Autolab at UC Berkeley]

Ken Goldberg thinks artificial intelligence will enable surgical robots to achieve their best function — not replacing surgeons but augmenting their work by reducing the monotony of specific subtasks like suturing.

The William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley, Goldberg and his research team have continued to advance the field.

The group — which includes postdoctoral researchers Minho Hwang and Jeffrey Ichnowski and PhD student Brijen Thananjeyan — has demonstrated how a deep neural network plus 3D-printed depth-sensing markers can train a da Vinci surgical robot to automatically perform peg transfer slightly faster and more accurately than an experienced surgical…