The robotic movement has been progressing and inserting itself into all forms of our culture and work force. While laser precision surgery has been around for a long time, we’ve reached a stage where robot-assisted surgery is going to make things much easier. For starters, aside from be more precise it’s also steadier, less invasive and it could even be a lot less stressful for the surgeon who doesn’t even have to be in the same room. The technology has come such a long way that Linda van den Bedem from Eindhoven University of Technology has taken this new age of surgery to a more sophisticated higher level. Here prototype adds a little more precision to the robotic surgery scenario by adding haptic feedback that is received by the surgeon performing an operation form a remote location.

Her creation called SOFI or Surgeon’s Operating Force-feedback Interface Eindhoven or SOFI uses joysticks as the main controls and provides feedback to the controller. The feedback will enable the surgeon to gauge the amount of pressure being applied to the tissues etc. It’s a remarkable innovation in techno-surgery and her design is also more compact than other robots in this field. O focuser it’ll be awhile before SOFI makes it to the mass production stage but she’s still one hell of a surgeon nevertheless.

[Gizmag]