If you’ve ever wondered what does a robotic doctor do in his free time, now there’s a chance to check this out. This guy seems to be very clever.
You may have already heard of da Vinci surgical robot who is responsible for first fully robotic surgery in the history of medicine (toghether with McSleepy), which took place last year in Montreal. To be perfectly honest, it’s not actually a robot, because da Vinci does not work on his own. It’s a tool allowing to achieve a very high level of precision when used by a skilled doctor.
Dr James Porter, a surgeon from Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center proved how far the precision can get. He folds a miniature paper airplane using da Vinci’s grippers. Though flying it was a bit harder than folding, the whole idea is definitely pretty impressive.
But that’s not all. Dr Porter used the same robot to give a manicure to his daughter.
Maybe using such an expensive and rare equipment (it’s price tag is around $1.3 mln) for casual things link folding paper airplanes is a bit risky, but there is no easier way to present the benefits coming from robotics used in medicine to a wider audience.
The system works quite simply – a surgeon sits in the same room as the robot and patient and uses a console equipped with a screen, foot pedals and hand controllers. Each movement of the surgeon is translated into movement of four robotic arms doing the real surgery. The surgeon gets a precise 3D, 10x zoomed view of the operating area along with very steady and accurate grippers. Da Vinci is one of the most technologically advanced robotic surgery systems in the world.
Are you interested in robots and paper airplanes? See exoskeleton arm x-Ar or awesome paper airplanes creations!
Via: Techflash / Crunchgear
