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Global Translational Medicine A Taxonomy of AI Assisted Medical Robots

recovery. Another reason for its popularity is an increasing magnetic actuator depend on the natural opening of the
proportion of the elderly. The elderly has a weaker intestine or stomach, which is dynamic and continuously
immunity and wound healing ability than the young. changing along with the heartbeat and respiration. Hence,
Therefore, it is crucial to invest energy and money in MIS a reliable support structure is needed for endoluminal
now and in the future. We have witnessed the progress robots to obtain better imaging of its surroundings deep
made by researchers in MIS in recent years; the seminal inside the human body. At present, self-propelling robots
ones are illustrated in Figure 4. are mainly developed for endoluminal examinations.
They have yet to meet the requirements of drug delivery,
2.2.1. Self-propelling robots for endoluminal surgery which has higher demands for accurate localization and
Traditional endoscopic equipment used in clinical resistance to gastrointestinal peristalsis.
therapeutic tasks tends to cause pain and agitate the
stomach as a soft cable, containing imaging or small 2.2.2. Surgical robots through the natural orifice
scalpels, would be pushed through the stomach or intestine. As a minimally invasive surgical approach, natural orifice
Therefore, several types of self-propelling endoluminal transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) robots are
robots with different performances have been proposed by gaining widespread attention for bare skin incision, faster
researchers . recovery time, and fewer complications after surgery [62,65] .
[60]
Researchers have designed a new propelling method The main challenge of NOTES is the localization and
inspired by wasp ovipositor, which squeezes its tail needle navigation ability when deep inside the human body.
into the rind of tree through multiple sliding body parts . A number of surgical robots are now able to carry out
[61]
The propelling endoluminal robot is able to drive itself natural orifice tasks. With regard to NOTES, the focus is
forward in the intestine with a rotatable camera mounted on development of tools for multitasks and compact-sized
on one of its body parts. Further research is needed even soft continuum robots with multiple articulations and
after testing the novel self-propelling endoluminal robots more power.
for the risk of insufficient energy, which would cause these Shen et al. devised a multitasking robot with two
robots to remain inside the body, and the image sticking hands, like humans, but equipped with multifunctional
algorithm of the rotating camera in the dynamic human manipulators, aiming at on-site tool exchange based on the
intestine is susceptible to peristalsis and breathing. To type of surgery . Another important feature is the motor-
[65]
overcome the possible adverse effects produced by the like actuator with two spatial independent articulated
friction between the sliding body part and the intestinal curvature sections. They attempted to address the power
mucosa, researchers have turned to a new direction: deficit problem, which constrains the degree-of-freedom
Extracorporeal magnetic actuator [46,62] . Endoluminal motion inside the lumen of the stomach, intestine, etc.
robots that are propelled by body parts or extracorporeal The research team also rearranged the operation sequence
A B

C D E

Figure 4. Three interpretations of minimally invasive surgical robots with AI-ART. (A) Soft endoluminal in vivo robot propelled by rotating magnetic
field . (B) Deglutible capsule robot propelled by rotating magnetic dipole fields . (C) Operative illustration through natural orifice . (D) Retinal robot
[62]
[61]
[60]
with AI-ART . (E) Illustration of self-propelling magneto-fluorescent nanorobot capturing tumor cells .
[64]
[63]
Volume 1 Issue 2 (2022) 5 https://doi.org/10.36922/gtm.v1i2.176