Imperial College opens miniature medical robot factory

The new EPSRC Micro-Machining Facility for Medical Robotics facility will be led by Prof Guang-Zhong Yang, director of Imperial’s Hamlyn Centre.

According to the university, the new facility will provide a national hub for academia and industry in Britain for developing miniaturised surgical robotics to improve the diagnosis of diseases and drug therapies.

The need for improvements in surveillance and earlier diagnosis of conditions, along with an increasing proportion of minimally invasive procedures being carried out by surgeons that target smaller lesions, requires the development of new types of miniaturised robots for surgery.

Thanks to advances in rapid prototyping technologies, micro-fabrication and micro-machining processes, along with the development of advanced materials that are compatible with the body, researchers at the facility will now be able to build a range of advanced surgical tools and smart implants that can deliver targeted therapies with micro-instruments that also have integrated sensing and imaging technology.