This mini-RCM can perform surgical procedures with greater precision
Origami-inspired Robotic engineering has created this cutting-edge surgical tool with various use cases
Harvard researchers drew upon inspiration from the Japanese art of Origami to develop this innovative robotic surgical tool. Last month, I wrote about how researchers at the University of Michigan used the same technique to come up with the first of its kind folding microbots — bots that can form one shape, perform a certain task, reconfigure into a different shape to form an entirely different function.
This recent project is a collaboration between Faculty member Robert Wood of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and Robotics Engineer Hiroyuki Suzuki of Sony Corporation. The work on the mini-RCM had been ongoing since 2018.
The miniature robot put together is the size of a tennis ball and weighs only as much as a penny. All this and it successfully performed a mock of difficult surgical tasks. The new design is a vast improvement over the current bulky machinery used in healthcare whose functionality is limited to handling comparatively large tools.
Suzuki and Wood developed this mini robot for micro-tasks using the Pop-Up MEMS manufacturing technique developed in the latter's…
