Development of a New Robotic Platform for Microsurgery

While robotics has primarily penetrated laparoscopic surgery with the product offering of Intuitive Surgical and to a lesser extent orthopedic, spinal, and brain surgery, plastic surgery has remained largely untouched by robotics to date, partially due to the absence of a dedicated robotic technology. In this chapter, we examine the technology gaps that have contributed to this scenario and describe how the resulting criteria for a robotic platform for reconstructive microsurgery have propelled an end-user-driven development of a robotic platform with wristed robotic microinstruments for open surgery.