Autonomous Robots Are Coming to the Operating Room

Benjamin Tee has long been captivated by a scene in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" where the surgical droid 2-1B replaces Luke Skywalker's hand after Darth Vader slices it off with a lightsaber in a battle on Cloud City. A fully autonomous robot surgeon is the Holy Grail--and many years off, says Dr. Tee, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the National University of Singapore. He and other researchers are developing devices that can perform surgical tasks with minimal human oversight. Dr. Tee's latest project is an "artificial skin" that would give robots a sense of touch, allowing them to do things like differentiate between healthy tissue and tumors and make surgical incisions. Other researchers are working on robots that stitch up incisions and navigate to repair organs.