Cutting edge

Would you go under the knife if a robot was the one holding it? Or would you say, "No way, I need a human touch"? You might have to decide soon because a robot that can imitate skilled human surgeons is already here.

- NIRMAL JOVIAL

Recently, researchers at Johns Hopkins University demonstrated that a da Vinci Surgical System robot, trained by watching videos of experienced doctors, could perform surgical procedures with the same accuracy as surgeons. Currently, the da Vinci's robotic arms are controlled by surgeons. This breakthrough in imitation learning-wherein the robot learns by mimicking instead of being programmed to do tasks-is revolutionising robotic surgery, bringing it closer to true autonomy. The researchers' findings were recently shown at the Conference on Robot Learning in Munich, a top event for robotics and machine learning. Axel Krieger, an assistant professor at JHU's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the senior author of the research, sa