PURPOSE Rapid adoption of robot-assisted surgery has outpaced our ability to train novice roboticists. Objective metrics are required to adequately assess robotic surgical skills and yet surrogates for proficiency, such as economy of motion and tool path metrics, are not readily accessible directly from the da Vinci® robot system. The trakSTAR™ Tool Tip Tracker is a widely available, cost-effec...

As a result of years of research on the comparative biomechanics and physiology of moving through water, biologists and engineers have made considerable progress in understanding how animals moving underwater use their muscles to power movement, in describing body and appendage motion during propulsion, and in conducting experimental and computational analyses of fluid movement and attendant fo...

BACKGROUND In recent years, there has been a shift toward minimally invasive procedures. In hair transplantation surgery, this trend has manifested with the emergence of follicular unit extraction (FUE). Recently, a robot has been introduced for FUE procedures. OBJECTIVE To determine the transection rate of a robotic FUE device. MATERIALS AND METHODS The authors discuss the procedure, techn...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Performance of therapist-assisted, body-weight-supported treadmill training (BWSTT) to enhance walking ability of people with neurological injury is an area of intense research. Its application in the clinical setting, however, is limited by the personnel and labor requirements placed on physical therapists. Recent development of motorized ("robotic") rehabilitative devic...

Since 2005 when the da Vinci surgical system was approved as a medical device by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, 51 systems have been installed in 40 institutions as of May 2015. Although robotic surgery is not covered by the national health insurance service in Korea, it has been used in several urologic fields as a less invasive surgery. Since the first robotic-assisted laparoscopi...

BACKGROUND Advanced flexible endoscopes and instruments with multiple degrees of freedom enable physicians to perform challenging procedures such as the removal of large sections of mucosal tissue. However, these advanced endoscopes are difficult to control and require several physicians to cooperate. METHODS In this article, we present a robotic system that allows the physician to control an...

The da Vinci S surgical system (Intuitive Surgical) was approved as a medical device in 2009 by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Robotic surgery has since been used in gastrointestinal, thoracic, gynecological, and urological surgeries. In April 2012, robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALP) was first approved for insurance coverage. Since then, RALP has be...

Cutting sticking operation is essential on a chrysanthemum production to enhance its productivity, since many cuttings can be obtained from one mother plant. Usually, human being manually sticks the cuttings to plug tray, however, it takes a lot of time and much labor, since the number of cuttings is said to be about 200 million in a district where yields the highest number of chrysanthemums in...

This paper analyzes the performance of a robotic system with two machines in which machines are configured in a circular layout and produce non-identical parts repetitively. The non-destructive testing (NDT) is performed by a stationary robotic arm located in the center of the circle, or a cluster tool. The robotic arm integrates multiple tasks, mainly the NDT of the part and its transition bet...

BACKGROUND A prototype magnetic resonance image (MRI)-conditional robot was developed for navigating a high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) system in order to treat prostate cancer transrectally. MATERIALS AND METHODS The developed robotic device utilizes three PC-controlled axes: a linear axis for motion along the rectum, an angular axis for rotation in the rectum, and a linear axis to l...