The robot nurse

Surgeon Michael R. Treat and his team at Robotic Surgical Tech have developed a robotic surgical assistant, named Penelope, to organise and manage all the surgical instruments used in an operating theatre – essentially replacing all the jobs usually assigned to a scrub nurse.

The Penelope robot itself is comprised of four major hardware and software components: the robotic arm, the instrument platform, the system stand, and the system control software.

Penelope has a 5 degree-of-freedom robotic arm with an electromagnetic gripper that move surgical instruments around. It unpacks instruments from the back tray, arranges them on a Mayo stand, and then hands them to the surgeon.

The arm’s electromagnetic gripper can pick up surgical instruments weighing up to 8 ounces. A magnetic gripper was chosen for the design, since it is far simpler to design, cheaper to manufacture, and more reliable; it’s also safer since the instruments aren’t held too tightly.