Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS) offers many advantages when compared to traditional MIS, including improved vision, precision and dexterity. While the popularity of RAMIS is steadily increasing, the potential for improving patient outcomes and penetrating into many procedures is not fully realised, largely because of serious limitations in the current instrumentation, control and feedback to the surgeon. Specifically, restricted access, lack of force feedback, and use of rigid tools in confined spaces filled with organs pose challenges to full adoption.

Bristol Robotics Laboratory at UWE is currently seeking to appoint a Research Associate/ Research Fellow, to join a dynamic team of researchers and work for SMARTsurg project.

In the frame of European Robotics Forum (ERF) 2017 (March 22-24, 2017) SMARTsurg partners co-organized and participated at three workshops.

Partners met on 16-17 January in Bristol, United Kingdom, to set up the first project steps.

The SMARTsurg project was launched on 1^st January 2017 and includes partners from United Kingdom, France, Greece and, Italy. It aims to develop a wearable robotic system for minimally invasive surgery, also known as keyhole surgery, that will offer surgeons natural and dexterous movement as well as the ability to ‘sense’, ‘see’, control and safely navigate through the surgical environment. The project is funded by the European Research programme Horizon 2020 and will last three years.