TOMORROWS SURGERY - MICROMOTORS AND MICROROBOTS FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE PROCEDURES

Surgical procedures have changed radically over the last few years due to the arrival of new technology. What will technology bring us in th e future? This paper examines a few of the forces whose timing is caus ing new ideas to congeal from the fields of artificial intelligence, r obotics, micromachining and smart materials. intelligence systems for autonomous mobile robots can now enable simple, insect level, behavior s in small amounts of silicon. These software break-throughs, coupled with new techniques for micro-fabrication of miniature sensors and act uators from both silicon and ferroelectric families of materials, offe r glimpses of the future where robots will be small, cheap and, potent ially very useful to surgeons. In this paper we relate our recent work with small mobile robots and in fabricating piezoelectric micromotors , in an effort to develop actuator technologies where brawn matches th e scale of the brain. We discuss our experiments with thin film piezoe lectric ultrasonic motors 2 mm in diameter and larger versions, machin ed from bulk ceramic, 8 mm in diameter. We also sketch possible applic ations in the surgical field and discuss larger scale prototypes for i ntestine crawlers.