She “works on surgical robots and robotic surgical procedures, using robots to make surgery safer — and to go places where human wrists and eyes simply can’t.”

She’s talking about surgical robots and surgical vision technology. Surgeons are tailors, plumbers, butchers of medical industry.

History of surgery. How did we even come to believe that surgery — cutting and reforming — was OK? Shows picture of ancient trepanated (hole drilled in) skull. Goes back 5k to 10k years. This is the dawn of interventional surgery. How much was intended to be religious or therapeutic? we know that these patients lived for many years after being trepanned.

The itinerant barber surgeon – before age of anesthesia. Patient in pain was a public spectacle. Barber surgeon was almost a form of entertainment. Surgery was done on public in front of big crowd.

1847 — anesthesia. It gave surgeons freedom to operate, to delve deeper into body. A revolution in surgery. But problem: after surgery, the patients died, of massive infection. Surgery didn’t hurt but it killed you.

Aseptic technique. Joseph Lister was thought to be a fool for believing that it was as important for surgeons to wash hands before surgery as after. After a while, the medical community warmed to the idea.

Healthy people don’t need surgery, unhealthy people need surgery, but since they are unhealthy, it’s harder for them to recover.

Laparoscopy — small incisions. A lot easier on the body. Much easier to heal. But laparoscopy is hard to learn. Surgeons had to give up 3D vision, wrists, etc. External ergonomics are terrible. Instruments are working backwards. You need to take capability of your hand and put it at the business end of instrument.

Robotic surgery tool — the DaVinci — has “wrists” and 3D vision that greatly improve dexterity. She’s showing amazing videos of heart and prostrate surgery. Tiny pincers at work.

Limitations — if you need to reach more places that just one, you need to move robot and open new holes in patient. Becomes time-consuming. To solve this we need to bring camera and instruments through one small tube. She’s showing a new surgery tool — it looks like an HR Giger tentacle with mini tentacles that blossom open from the main trunk. Can inject dyes into cells and the light can make cancerous cells visible.

Via BoingBoing

Then Denton gave it a shot with his B.F.Hexapod, showing off some impressive drawing skills:

If you want to see more info, or to drill these guys for more information on their projects, hit up the forums.  Kåre’s thread; Matt’s thread.

Robotics and computers are merging, there is no doubt about it, but questions remain- Why is it taking so long? Where do the standards belong? What tools are in the marketplace which assist integration? What are the necessary steps to take?

One thing is clear, we need a roadmap to help guide us through this winding road of merging worlds. Join us as we dig deep into this discussion of integrating modern computers into our robotics platforms.

We have uploaded the whole talk to youtube for those that couldn’t make it to the event. The talk is broken up into 10 parts so people can jump to the sections they most care about or watch the whole thing. You can find the speech here on the Trossen Robotics System homepage. The TRS is an industry proposal for a standard Robotics Object Model which will solve many of the issues plaguing the industry today.

If you're planning to attend the RoboDevelopment Conference in San Jose, CA (Oct. 25-26), don't miss your chance to see futurist, visionary, and robovangelist Matt Trossen speak about the rapidly-changing world of robotics!  The field of robotics is ripe and ready to move away from its esoteric roots, but how are we roboticists going to help bring robotics into the mainstream, for the betterment of mankind?  Matt will be speaking at 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26.

Follow this link for a complete schedule of RoboDevelopment speakers.

From the RoboDevelopment website:

Matt Trossen CEO, Trossen Robotics The advent of low-cost modular hardware built around ever-shrinking computers is ushering in a new era of innovation and advancement for robotics. Join Matt Trossen for a discussion about revolutionary new tools available in the marketplace that are changing the landscape of robotics development. Understand how migration from proprietary systems toward modular solutions, high-level languages and standards is driving a new wave of unprecedented growth in our industry. The future of robotics has arrived and is waiting on your doorstep. Don't get left behind! Matt Trossen is founder and CEO of Trossen Robotics, an online hardware store for robotics developers. Trossen Robotics serves the hobby, educational, and research robotic market places. Matt is also active in the community promoting advancements through establishing development partnerships between companies, driving standards, and advising in areas of product development, distribution, and market development.

Critical articles are good for an industry because they make people think. The Register has an article called, “Why do robot experts build such lousy robots?” which focuses on the fact that most of what is coming out today isn’t useful in the consumer marketplace. I have to agree with a lot of the sentiments in the article. I myself tire of all the big claims that come out of research labs about how this or that technology will change the world. The real case is that the gap between a labratory concept and commercial product viability is greater than the one between Paris Hilton’s ears. And that’s not a small gap.

The criticism that today’s roboticists need to focus harder on real world applications is a fair one. For new technologies to survive and find revenue support they need to prove their viability at improving our lives. Self parking cars that only work half assed are not particularly useful integrations of robotics into our lives. Such “innovations” are gimmicks at best. We know how to park our damn cars. We’ve been doing it for 100 years. What next, a robot that helps me scoot my chair in? The Roomba was a great application of robotics to the consumer market space, hence it’s tremendous success. People want to see this kind of integration repeated.

I’m okay with being harsh on roboticists (including myself) because we all need consistent reminders that the market place is harshly Darwinian. Just because WE may be able to imagine wonderful uses for the technologies we play with in the lab, doesn’t mean they have any real world viability in the current market place today. That’s a problem. Research dollars only take you so far. Eventually you have to create something people can use. Tough love is a good thing. It helps keep us focused on the task at hand, and that is building useful technologies.
Big thanks to Cris Kilner for pointing us to the article in his blog dotnetrobot