Robotic surgeon could remove shrapnel on battlefield

Research team member A. J. Rogers with the shrapnel-finding surgical robot

Article Summary

Bioengineers at Duke Univesity in North Carolina have developed a laboratory prototype of a robot that can locate and surgically extract shrapnel pieces from flesh without any kind of human supervision. Using 3-D ultrasound imaging as “eyes”, the tabletop robot was able to precisely locate tiny shards of metal and then successfully guide a needle to their exact location.

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