The surgeon stands at the console, a few tens of centimeters away from the operating table, and looks in through the telescope to study the 3-D images sent by the camera inside the patient. The image shows the surgical site and two surgical instruments fixed to the endpoints of the two aforementioned rods. A joystick-like control handle, located directly below the screen, is used by the surgeon to operate the surgical instruments. Each time the joystick is moved, the computer sends an electronic signal to the instruments, which move in synchronization with the surgeon's hand.
Another robotic system nearing FDA approval is the ZEUS system, made by Computer Motion, which is already available in Europe. But every procedure used to plan a surgery, whether it's the da Vinci system or the ZEUS system, must be approved by the government agency. The $750,000 ZEUS system is similar to the da Vinci unit. It has a computer workstation, a video monitor and control handles for moving surgical instruments mounted on an operating table.The ZEUS system is currently approved for use only in medical trials in the United States, whereas doctors in Germany have already used it for coronary bypass surgery.
The ZEUS system is assisted by the Automated Endoscopic Positioning (AESOP) robotic system. Released in 1994 by Computer Motion, AESOP was the first FDA-approved robot that could be used in the operating room to assist in surgery.AESOP is much simpler than the da Vinci system and the ZEUS system.AESOP is basically just a robotic arm that is used by the surgeon to position an endoscope -- a surgical camera that is inserted into the patient's body. AESOP is basically just a robotic arm that is used by the surgeon to position an endoscope - a surgical camera that is inserted into the patient. A foot pedal or sound software is used to position the camera, which leaves the doctor's hands free to continue the procedure.
Canada's University of Calgary has announced that a research team led by Dr. Garrett Sutherland, a surgical expert at the university, has teamed up with MDA, the company that developed the space shuttle's robotic arm, to develop a surgical robotic system called the "neural arm. Experts believe that this system will revolutionize microsurgery by revolutionizing the way surgery is performed.