Review of robotic fixtures for minimally invasive surgery.

Instrumental robotics aims to provide function-oriented solutions for given technical problems. Micro-Electro- Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) technologies provide miniaturized instruments, capable of effective duty-cycles at millimeter ranges. This review of current developments describes example devices, developed for intracorporeal operations; - system architectures, mainly concerned with problem-solving approaches and synthetic outlines of modified methods and layouts. This review is principally concerned with technologies, but the nature of the medical surroundings cannot be disregarded. Robotic devices serve surgical staff to help them accomplish surgical procedures. Safety and reliability require high functional and structural performance, especially for the active, autonomous stages of the operation. All these aspects are considered, and an overview is presented of characteristic features generally required for the miniaturization of instruments used in remote access surgery. Copyright 2004 Robotic Publications Ltd.