Robotic arms could be future of surgery

The robots are taking over -- in the operating room.

UW researchers are looking at robotic technologies as an expansion of arthroscopic and laparoscopic surgery, which now give surgeons the ability to perform operations while minimizing the trauma caused by incisions.

A potential new technology would make the less-invasive surgery method possible for more complex surgeries. Instead of a surgeon using rigid probes for an operation, the devices would have "wrists" that mimic the surgeon's hand movements. The surgeon's hands would be in a device that would recreate the forces being put on the remote-controlled surgical tool.

Engineering professor Blake Hannaford and surgery professor Mika Sinanan have invested more than a decade in the technology. The two fields may seem different, but Sinanan said the years of working together have made him and Hannaford more familiar with each other's specialties -- and that surgery really isn't that different from engineering.

"It's human engineering -- you're rebuilding people or parts of people," Sinanan said. "There's a lot of art to surgery. It hasn't actually been measured before."

The UW is also taking on one part of a two-year project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The University's part of the $12 million grant is going toward a tool-changing and sterilization device for the military's "Trauma Pod" project.

The military's interest in the technology is rooted in the need to get wounded soldiers off the battlefield in the shortest possible amount of time. Many soldiers die within the first hour of being wounded.

"They call it the golden hour," Hannaford said.

The technology would also make use of remote controlled, robotic surgical equipment.

The Trauma Pod would also keep military medics out of harm's way by automating the process, though human eyes would still oversee the project.

The goal is to hand over more of the work to devices, since the person controlling the device would often have to work with as much as a two-second time delay.

"The tolerable time delays are in the range of 30 to 60 milliseconds," Sinanan said. "However, we could for example say, 'Between point A and B we want this to happen.'" That level of automation could happen within the next 50 years, he said.