Telerobotics in medicine and surgery

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Abstract
Summary. The application of telerobotic technologies to medicine and surgery strictly depends on research and development in five main areas: functionality, environment, physical constraints, communication, and security. The clinical application of robotic technology in the field of microsurgery, orthopaedic surgery, and minimally invasive surgery has shown promising results, pushing researchers to further develop computer-aided surgery as well as diagnostics systems and microrobots. Telemanipulation, interface technologies, sensors, vision systems, virtual reality and function integration are employed to re-design the operating theatre, thus enhancing future applications of robotics in surgery. Because of the restrictions in the surgical field, the construction of miniaturized mechanisms is required, being grounded on different technologies: silicon micro-mechanics, surface micro-engineering and LIGA technology. Nanotechnology, memory alloys and superelastic materials are also employed. Other technological issues are: the communication of vocal, visual, textual and numerical information via cable, satellite or laser satellite transmission. Security and confidentiality of data are fundamental for telematics applied to medicine. Problems to be solved are the quality of image transmission and the signal delay as well as those related to working in a dynamic environment.

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