Robotics

Augmented reality is quickly becoming more integrated into everyday usage, such as smartphone apps that can identify landmarks, constellations, and more. Head-worn goggles, like Google Glass can superimpose computer-generated images onto your direct view of the physical world. But, moving your eyes back...

A robot developed by researchers at the at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA) at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) can react on the spot, grasping flying objects thrown at it with complex shapes and trajectories in less than five hundredths of a second.

A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, has designed a computerized imaging process to make minimally invasive surgery more accurate and streamlined using equipment already common in the operating room.

Physicians at the Medical College of Georgia and Georgia Regents University, Augusta, say that the intra-aortic balloon pump, one of the most frequently used mechanical circulatory assist devices in the world may have untapped potential. One of its many uses is helping ensure adequate oxygen...

First-of-its-kind research being done at the Innovation Institute at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI, shows promise for developing a method of clearly identifying cancerous tissue during surgery on glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a tumor that attacks tissue around nerve cells in the brain.

When babies are born with congenital heart defects, like a hole, time is of the essence to quickly and safely secure a device inside the heart. Sutures take too long and can cause damage to fragile heart tissue, and currently available adhesives are either too toxic or lose their sticking power in the...

A robot, created by of a joint collaboration between researchers of the High School of Industrial Engineers of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) in Spain and the Gliatech S.L Company, can be used to guide precise insertion of needles and catheters. It has a hybrid powerstrain structure...

A team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, have received a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for its project to perfect the technology to steer a robotic catheter through the heart’s beating chambers using the push and pull of magnetic fields while...

According to a study of 69,000 Medicare patient records led by researchers at The Johns Hopkins Hospital's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Spine Outcomes Research Center, people with spine compression fractures who undergo operations to strengthen back bones with cement survive...

A small, wireless capsule has been developed by a team of doctors and engineers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, that, they say, can restore the sense of touch that surgeons are losing as they shift increasingly from open to laparoscopy or minimally invasive surgery.

A study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), New York, NY, researchers suggests that narrow-spectrum ultraviolet (UV) light could dramatically reduce surgical infections without damaging human tissue.

Small cubes with no exterior moving parts can propel themselves forward, jump on top of each other, and snap together to form arbitrary shapes, say researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they’re able to...

Laser-based technology could make brain tumor surgery more accurate by allowing surgeons to better identify cancer tissue from normal brain tissue at a microscopic level during surgery. This could allow them to avoid leaving behind cells that could spawn a new tumor, say a team of...

Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

An innovative new heart catheter, the IntellaTip MiFi™ XP catheter, pinpoints areas for therapy delivery. The device was given FDA approval in the United States in August for the treatment of atrial flutter, an arrhythmia that affects nearly one million people in the United States.

The Altair Robotics Laboratory at the University of Verona, Italy, has developed and is making available its Xron, a new simulator for training in robotic surgery. With Xron, a trainee controls the virtual robots in a realistic environment using stereoscopic rendering and advanced input devices.