High-Precision Surgical Robot Embeds Cochlear Implant
From: Medical Design Brief - 05/2017

The robot's sensors can "feel" the texture of the bone while drilling.

A team of surgeons and engineers from Inselspital, Bern University Hospital,
and the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of
Bern, Switzerland, have developed a high-precision surgical robot for
cochlear implantation. In the same way that avionics allow a pilot to fly a
plane by instrument solely based on readouts from the cockpit, the surgical
robot developed by the researchers can perform surgery that a surgeon cannot
carry out manually without a robot.

The aim of the Bernese research project was to investigate robotic cochlear
implantation technology that could lead to a novel implantation procedure 
with improved hearing outcomes for cochlear implant patients. 

Read the entire article at:
http://npi-med.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MAY2017-ISSUE-Medical-Design-Briefs.pdf
(pages 38 - 39)

Links:
ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research
http://www.artorg.unibe.ch

Instrument Flight to the Inner Ear
http://www.artorg.unibe.ch/about_us/news_amp_events/index_eng.html
http://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/eaal4916