State of the art in medical robotics in Poland: development of the Robin Heart and other robots

Abstract

The first Polish project in medical robotics began in 2000. Now, a decade later, the Robin Heart surgical telemanipulator has the potential to become widely used in many branches of surgery. The original robot and mechatronic tools have successfully completed the required laboratory tests and animal studies. The Foundation of Cardiac Surgery Development in Zabrze, Poland, has launched a series of large-scale educational and awareness-raising activities aiming to promote medical robotics in Poland. At present, works on a rehabilitation robot are in progress in two centers. This article is an attempt to summarize the advances in medical robotics in Poland, to present the most interesting achievements to date and to discuss the prospects for further development.

Keywords::

• medical robots
• rehabilitation
• surgery
• surgical tools

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all those who have contributed to his achievements. The author wishes to thank Sandra Lindon for linguistic assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The Robin Heart project was financed as part of the KBN 8 T11E 001 18 research project, from the grants of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education PW-004/ITE/02/2004, R13 033 01 and R13 0058 06/2009, by the Foundation for Cardiac Surgery Development, as well as many sponsors. The ARM-100 project was financed by the grants of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education R13 027 02. The RENUS-1 rehabilitation robot was created in the Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements and Robin Heart Vision in the Foundation of Cardiac Surgery Development within the framework of a research grant in the long-term program: ‘An improvement of Innovation in the Production and Exploitation in 2004–2008’. This program was coordinated by the Institute of Technology Exploitation, Radom, Poland. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.