Never Send a Man to do a Robot's Job

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Robots are more suitable for many jobs than are humans--once robots achieve the same degree of decision-making competence that expert humans acquire through experience. But since it will probably be a few decades before machines acquire human-level or better intelligence and mental adaptability, another approach called "telepresence" will be quite useful. Telepresence allows a human operator to become immersed in a virtual or real-remote environment, using robotic manipulators and sensors as his eyes, ears, arms and hands.

Telexistence is fundamentally a concept named for the general technology that enables a human being to have a real-time sensation of being at a place other than where he or she actually exists, and being able to interact with the remote environment, which may be real, virtual, or a combination of both. It also refers to an advanced type of teleoperation system that enables an operator at the control to perform remote tasks dexterously with the feeling of existing in a surrogate robot working in a remote environment. We have developed "TELESAR" for realization of the telexistence. Telexistence in the real environment through a virtual environment is also possible. __Tachilab_via_Gizmowatch

The robot pictured above is the TELESAR2 robot for use with the telexistence system at Tachilab. It does not look or act like a real person, but allow for improvement in future robot design and someday it might. Having a real person in control of a remote robot that looks and acts exactly like him/her should provide an imaginative person with some fascinating opportunities. But I digress.

Remote manipulation is already becoming common in the surgical suite, in research labs, on space stations, and on the battlefield. UAVs and UGVs are increasingly being used to patrol battle zones, border areas, and potential crime scenes. It is only a matter of time before human passengers are ferried about by remotely piloted and operated vehicles. Or maybe the human "passengers" will send their robots instead in their place?

With ubiquitous wireless internet coverage over the globe, it will become possible for ordinary persons to go to the highest peaks and the deepest undersea trenches remotely, with the reality of the experience limited only by the bandwidth and reliability of the data link, along with the quality of the hardware at both ends.

David Brin's SF thriller Kiln People describes a world where we can send intelligent copies of ourselves out into the world to perform tasks we may not have time for, or may not wish to do personally. Telepresence is not the same thing, because it would be difficult to control more than one robot at a time. Still, a clever person might find a way to take advantage of "down time" at one location to put in an appearance at another location.

Robo-Surgeon Joined By Robo-Anesthesiologist

How long before we have an "all-robot" operating room? Not so long, perhaps. McGill University researchers have developed a robotic anesthesiologist that recently provided anesthesia for a human undergoing partial nephrectomy.

The anesthetic technique was used on a patient who underwent a partial nephrectomy, a procedure that removes a kidney tumor while leaving the non-cancerous part of the kidney intact, over a period of 3 hours and 30 minutes....the automated system measures three separate parameters displayed on a new Integrated monitor of anesthesia (IMATM): depth of hypnosis via EEG analysis, pain via a new pain score, called AnalgoscoreTM, and muscle relaxation via phonomyographyTM, all developed by ITAG. The system then administers the appropriate drugs using conventional infusion pumps, controlled by a laptop computer on which “McSleepy” is installed. Using these three separate parameters and complex algorithms, the automated system calculates faster and more precisely than a human can the appropriate drug doses for any given moment of anesthesia.... An additional feature is that the system can communicate with personal digital assistants (PDAs), making distant monitoring and anesthetic control possible. In addition, this technology can be easily incorporated into modern medical teaching programs such as simulation centers and web-based learning platforms. __Eurekalert

Robotic surgeons have been accepted by most human patients, so it is likely that robotic anesthesiologists will likewise be welcomed. The increased precision provided by robotic actuators and sensors may relegate operating room personnel to the roles of supervisors and occasional troubleshooters.

Don't be surprised to see robots trundling down hospital ward hallways the night before surgery, doing the pre-op rounds for both surgeons and anesthesiologists.

Dental Fembot

The robotic dental simulator featured early in this video from the International Robot Exhibition has a healthy gag reflex, and will moan in pain if the dental student accidentally touches a nerve.

Simroid, a robotic dental patient with an eerily realistic appearance, has been spotted at the 2007 International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. Designed primarily as a training tool for dentists, the fembot patient can follow spoken instructions, closely monitor a dentist’s performance during mock treatments, and react in a human-like way to mouth pain. Because Simroid’s realistic appearance and behavior motivate people to treat her like a human being, as opposed to an object, she helps dental trainees learn how to better communicate with patients.

Pink TentacleMade by Kokoro Company, also the makers of the DER2 receptionist and guide robot, she is not to be confused with Honey Doll, who also moans--but for different reasons. ;-)

Tools such as this should provide medical, dental, and nursing students with helpful feedback, before performing painful and delicate procedures on actual patients. We are not far from the day when pre-clinical training--including online VR with haptics feedback and realistic simulators--will better prepare the next generation of health care students for a more technologically advanced future.

Update: This Eurekalert newsrelease describes the work of a UCLA mathematician who devises algorithms for state of the art VR surgical simulations for training surgeons:

Making virtual surgery a reality will require solving mathematical equations, as well as making progress in computational geometry and computer science. An applied mathematician, Teran works in these fields; he develops algorithms to solve equations. Advances by Teran and other scientists in computational geometry, partial differential equations and large-scale computing are accelerating virtual surgery.

How human tissue responds to a surgeon, Teran said, is based on partial differential equations. Teran solves on a computer the mathematical equations that govern physical phenomena relevant to everyday life.

MRI-Safe Robot Can Take Guided Biopsies During Imaging

Most robotic motors are electromagnetic--so they are excluded from the MRI chamber. If you want an MRI-guided robot to work on a patient during the MRI procedure, you have to try a different type of motor. The pneumatic stepper motor--controlled by optical fibre--is an obvious fit.

“Lots of biopsies on organs such as the prostate are currently performed blind because the tumors are typically invisible to the imaging tools commonly used,” says Dan Stoianovici, Ph.D., an associate professor of urology at Johns Hopkins and director of the robotics lab. “Our new MRI-safe motor and robot can target the tumors. This should increase accuracy in locating and collecting tissue samples, reduce diagnostic errors and also improve therapy.”

A description of the new motor, made entirely out of plastics, ceramics and rubber, and driven by light and air, was published in the February issue of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechanotronics.

The challenge for his engineering team was to overcome MRI’s dependence on strong magnetic interference. Metals are unsafe in MRIs because the machine relies on a strong magnet, and electric currents distort MR images, says Stoianovici. The team used six of the motors to power the first-ever MRI-compatible robot to access the prostate gland. The robot currently is undergoing preclinical testing.

“Prostate cancer is tricky because it only can be seen under MRI, and in early stages it can be quite small and easy to miss,” says Stoianovici.

The new Johns Hopkins motor, dubbed PneuStep, consists of three pistons connected to a series of gears. The gears are turned by air flow, which is in turn controlled by a computer located in a room adjacent to the MRI machine. “We’re able to achieve precise and smooth motion of the motor as fine as 50 micrometers, finer than a human hair,” says Stoianovici.

The robot goes alongside the patient in the MRI scanner and is controlled remotely by observing the images on the MR. The motor is rigged with fiber optics, which feeds information back to the computer in real time, allowing for both guidance and readjustment.

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Such electricity-free motors should be useful in other areas where the absence of magnetism and electricity are important.

I am not thrilled at the prospect of a pneumo-robot creeping around my nether regions, snipping and stabbing--particularly within the confines of a mega-magnetic tube. Fortunately, by the time I am ready for such things, robots will be nano-sized and MRI will by superseded by gentler imaging techniques.

Hat tip medgadget