Autonomous 3D Robot Doc Gets X-Ray Powers With DIY A.I.

• robotics
• medicine
• health
• artificial intelligence
• surgery
• 3D

Looks like the robotic uprising could be headed for the OR after all: Bots can now see through your flesh in three dimensions, pinpoint the exact location of a buried cyst and, without a licensed doctor’s space-age help, direct a mechanical arm to perform a biopsy. That’s the conclusion of a new feasibility study from Duke University, which portends to usher in a new era of unmanned surgery.

In previous evaluations, researchers had used 3D ultrasonic scanners to allow doctors direct needles toward their targets. "This time, we just eliminated the surgeon," says Stephen Smith, director of Duke's Ultrasound Transducer Group. "The tumor was sitting by itself in a tank of gelatin, and we just took the three-dimensional image of that tumor, sent the images over to the computer, and the computer, using a very crude artificial intelligence program, found the center of the tumor and sent the robot to stab it with a needle."

Robots have lent a helping hand to surgery for years—doctors in the early 1990s used them to drill holes for hip replacements, and in 2001 a robot named Zeus translated the movements of a surgeon in New York to an operating room in France. Before that 3900-mile gallbladder removal, Zeus had been used to operate on a still-beating human heart. Last year alone, surgeons performed some 85,000 procedures with the da Vinci (pictured above), enabling them to work laparoscopically with remote arms through small openings, using specialized software to virtually eliminate hand tremors. A tiny stereoscopic camera broadcasts images from inside the body to the surgeon, comfortably seated at a booth across the operating room.

To date, most surgical robots focus on extending the capabilities of their human counterparts, acting as a sort of bionic suit. But Smith and his colleagues set out to prove that, with A.I working in conjunction with already developed scanner technology, robots can go it alone. Before worrying about the worst-case scenario, the team wants to create systems to work where doctors are not. Next up: applying their method to find shrapnel in patients on the battlefield. Down the line, the see-through capabilities of an unmanned robot doctor might be applied in real-time to rougher, hard-to-access terrain, from Iraq to outer space. (The Trauma Pod medic bot is scheduled to deploy next year, while researchers are already looking into health on Mars.)

For his part, Smith thinks advances in 3D ultrasound are ready for that next generation of robo-surgery, and the rest of the operation is quickly falling into place. “The surgical robotics are getting really good, and the artificial intelligence programs—not mine, but the state-of-the-art—are actually pretty good," he says. "I don't see any show-stoppers that there couldn't be in a number of years an autonomous robot that can accomplish simple tasks like a needle biopsy."

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