As part of a student group I’m in, I got to go to the university hospital and play with a surgery robot. See this site for details.
The system I worked on included Zeus, Hermes, and Aesop. It was way cool. I got to encode my own voice card (it was only temporary, as they are tres expensive) so I could give verbal commands while manipulating the controls. I worked with a suture needle, got to use articulating scissors, and in general had fun. It took some getting used to, especially the lack of depth perception (though there are some 3-D systems). What amazed me was the size of what I was manipulating–everything (quite obviously) looked huge in my display, but the needle I was manipulating was maybe 1 cm long.
Some of you may have heard of the “telesurgery” recently performed in France. It was this same system.
Aren’t you all jealous?
