Surgical robot performs first autonomous procedure

GeekWire : The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) has succeeded in sewing up the ruptured intestines of four live piglets. STAR uses near-IR imaging to gauge the surgical site, a computer program to develop a surgical procedure, and a robotic arm to suture the cut ends together. Monitored by a team of human surgeons, STAR was able to operate fully autonomously about 60% of the time. Although STAR surpassed most human surgeons in quality of work, based on the spacing of the stitches and the tension on the sutures, it required twice the amount of time. Nevertheless, the experiment has been deemed an important proof of concept. Such robot surgeons would have several uses, including making the best surgical techniques more widely available and allowing difficult medical procedures to be carried out in isolated environments such as Antarctica or future outposts in deep space.