Israeli Robots Do It All

June 21, 2011

Robots can aid surgeons in many ways, making delicate procedures safer and more routinely successful. Recently featured on CNN, world robotics expert Professor Moshe Shoham of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology invented the world's only robotic tool for back surgery, the SpineAssist.

“SpineAssist attaches to the patent's body so that that there is no damage caused to the surrounding nerves when implants are being placed in the spinal cord,” explains Shoham to ISRAEL21c. “One can insert instruments through the arm to minimize damage to vital organs.”

Shoham also developed ViRob, a clever one-millimeter robot that can swim past the stomach to deliver a payload of chemotherapy directly to cancer cells or, when equipped with a camera, take snapshots of a body's internal landscape for diagnostic purposes. He's also working on a small robot that can navigate through amniotic fluid to diagnose fetal abnormalities and even help perform in-utero surgery.

At Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Professor Gal Kaminka, who heads the robotics team, knows how important it is that Israeli borders are secure. But soldiers can be killed or kidnapped on routine surveillance, and captive soldiers, like Gilad Shalit, compromise national security. His idea was to create a team of intelligent sports utility vehicles that drive themselves. The idea is not novel, but the “brain” that Kaminka gives them is what makes his robots unique.

The SUV robots, now being commercialized by G-NIUS, are programmed to work in teams so that no area of the border is left without a watchful “eye” that knows how human beings might attempt to sneak under their radar.

Source: Excerpts of an article By Karin Kloosterman, www.israel21c.or

Photo Credit: www.israel21c.org