Robotics & Automation

A new image-guided surgical system is under development at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, that employs steerable needles to penetrate the brain with minimal damage and suction away the blood clot that has formed. Part of an ongoing collaboration between a team of engineers and physicians, the steerable needle...

Researchers at Imperial College London, say that they have developed an "intelligent knife" that can alert surgeons immediately whether the tissue they are cutting is cancerous or not. The “iKnife” diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 percent accuracy, instantly...

The innumerable divisions of the bronchi in the lungs can baffle researchers in search of tumors, but soon, lung specialists may be able to navigate accurately inside the airways using GPS-type technology say researchers with SINTEF, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia. A...

Doctors at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, are creating new hearts to help cardiac surgeons. Not actual hearts, but three-dimensional synthetic models using a 3D printer. The only one of its kind at a Washington area hospital, the printer uses scans from individual patients to replicate...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has introduced a long-awaited measurement tool to help device designers, manufacturers, and customers to see eye to eye on eight dimensional and material property measurements that are key to device performance. MEMS, once considered a stepchild of the...