Military Robo-Surgeon Prepares for Battle

by Tom Simonite NewScientist.com, 24 Aug 2006 Life-saving operations on soldiers in combat zones could become possible thanks to a portable robotic surgeon that allows doctors to perform surgery on the battlefield without endangering themselves. Surgical robots that can be operated remotely are already used in some civilian hospitals. However, these existing systems are large and cumbersome, taking up much of an operating room. Now Blake Hannaford and colleagues at the University of Washington have come up with a system small enough to travel with troops into combat zones in the back of an armoured vehicle. Read more