Recently, Sony revealed a prototype of a robot designed to assist in microsurgery. Although still in the development stage, this is a great accomplishment with the potential to revolutionize precision surgeries.
The robot first made its public debut a couple of weeks ago at the 2024 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
Then, a video of the same was released on YouTube. Uploaded by Sony Group, the video titled ‘Microsurgery Assistance Robot Stitching a Corn Kernel” demonstrated the accuracy of a microsurgery assistance robot prototype in suturing a corn kernel with tiny needles. This first-of-its-kind robot has already been tested successfully in animal surgery.
According to Sony, the new development stems from the company’s commitment to making advanced surgeries more accessible to both those performing the treatment and those in need of it. This initiative represents a significant advancement in the research and development of surgical assistance robot technology.
Microsurgery involves working on extremely small areas, often smaller than a millimeter. Such procedures require high levels of skill, are performed through a microscope, and can usually be done by only a limited number of doctors and facilities.
The microsurgery assistance robot operates remotely and can assist surgeons in operating on very small and extremely delicate body parts: veins, nerves, and tissues. It allows surgeons to perform tasks at a scale up to one-tenth times smaller than what is possible with human hands alone.
The video of the corn kernel surgery demonstrates a surgeon slicing open a small kernel and meticulously putting it back together using pens on equipment that remotely controls the robotic arms performing the surgery.
Sony’s robotic system comprises a tabletop console operated by the surgeon and a robot that performs procedures on the patient. The prototype robot comes with a small, lightweight, and highly sensitive control device to represent the delicate movements of human fingers. The robot replicates all the movements that the surgeon’s hands make on the console.
There’s also a miniature automatic instrument exchange that enables the robot to independently switch between tools in less than 10 seconds, that too with a simple command. This capability allows for more stable and faster exchanges, reducing delays and interruptions during surgery. It also eliminates the need for surgeons to have highly refined motor and finger coordination skills.
The robot is equipped with 1.3-type 4K OLED Microdisplays developed by Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation. These displays provide high-definition (HD) images of the targeted area while allowing operators to monitor the movement of surgical instruments closely. The 3D camera with 4K quality transmits the images in real-time to a VR headset attached to the surgeon’s table.
Microsurgery requires extremely precise movements, such as inserting needles into tiny blood vessels, as well as relatively larger motions, like pulling threads. Therefore, Sony has designed the microsurgery assistance robot to not only simplify the very tiny motions but also facilitate the surgeons’ larger movements without requiring them to adjust their approach.
So, using a motion scaling technique and a control device that can be manipulated with fingertips, much like conventional surgical instruments, Sony is able to have its robot provide extremely precise procedures in a stable posture.
For smooth and jerk-free movements, the company used low-friction joints for the robot arm, “from the joints corresponding to human shoulders and elbows to the ultra-small wrist joints at the tip of the instrument.” Additionally, the responsiveness of robot movements is enhanced through an electric control system focused on low latency and a lightness-focused mechanical system.
While robots that assist doctors in the medical field have been around for some time now, they haven’t achieved fully autonomous status yet. These robots currently assist surgeons in reducing hand movements and magnifying their vision. However, they surely open up new possibilities in surgery.
According to the Japan-based Sony, they have created the prototype to overcome the challenges currently faced by the aging society where the workforce has been dwindling, which puts an increasing workload on medical practitioners.
“In the field of surgery where high skill levels are required, the use of surgical robots that assist with precision operations is expected to reduce surgeon workloads and help promote the spread of advanced medical services.”
– Sony
Potential Applications of Sony’s Microsurgery Assistance Robot
Sony’s robot prototype was tested by surgeons at Aichi Medical University in Japan. In February, they successfully used the prototype to connect animal blood vessels, marking the world’s first case of successful blood vessel anastomosis in super microsurgery with a surgical assistant robot.
The study assessed the robot’s capacity to enhance the skills of novice microsurgeons and found the prototype has “exceptional control over the movements of inexperienced physicians,” said Professor Munekazu Naito, Aichi Medical University, Department of Anatomy. This enables Sony’s surgical assistance robot technology to perform intricate and delicate tasks with the adeptness of seasoned experts. He added:
“I hope that surgical assistance robot technology will bring about a future where the expanded capabilities of human physicians enable advanced medical practices.”
However, the robot isn’t yet available for sale. Sony hopes to use the robot to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of microsurgery. Its compact design and control console enable use in various settings, including disaster sites. The microsurgery assistance robot could even prove valuable during periods of staff shortages, which are a current challenge faced by healthcare systems worldwide.
According to Sony’s press release, Dr. Hisako Hara and Dr. Makoto Mihara have been testing the robot and are quite impressed with the prototype. They note that the robots operate naturally and harmoniously with their own movements.
The tech giant plans to work with medical institutions and university medical departments in the future to further refine its technology and verify its efficacy.
As can be seen, Sony is hard at work in robotics. The global company that is involved in gaming, music, movies, electronics products, imaging solutions, finance, and other businesses has also been diligently exploring robotics.
Sony’s R&D activities related to robotics are focused on creating robots that work in collaboration with humans. In this field, the company is developing a framework to aid in recognition processing and action planning as well as hypothesizing an architecture for advanced intelligent processing.
To control a robot’s whole-body cooperative motions, the company utilizes its unique generalized inverse dynamics (GID) procedure. This procedure allows any given part of the body to move in many different ways and change its compliance as desired.
Sony’s robotics efforts further involve force-controlled actuators. The virtualized actuator (VA) uses the joint forces calculated by the company’s patented tech to deliver state-of-the-art stability. Then, there is multi-contact stability control to allow legged robots to keep walking stably even if the ground is uneven.
Despite all the progress this giant has been making in various fields, the company’s stocks have been down 15.21% year-to-date (YTD). With Sony Group shares (SONY: NYSE) currently trading at $80.29, the company has a market cap of $100.25 bln. As per CNBC data, Sony has an EPS (TTM) of 5.20, a P/E (TTM) of 15.45, and an ROE (TTM) of 13.68. The dividend yield, meanwhile, is 0.69%.
When it comes to the company’s financials, for three months ending in March 2024, Sony reported an increase of 13% YoY in revenue to 3.481 trillion yen (over $22 bln). The company’s net profit meanwhile jumped 34% YoY to 189 billion yen (about $1.21 billion).
Sony’s gaming business, in particular, has been thriving, with operating profit more than doubling to 105.98 billion yen. The company reported selling 20.8 million units of PlayStation 5 in the fiscal year. Much like the gaming sector, Sony’s movie business also saw its operating profit nearly double to 30.67 billion yen. In fact, Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) to look at movie studio Paramount’s books ahead of a potential bid for its assets.
So, Sony, a widely successful company with many decades of history, has entered the medical robotics field with its microsurgery assistance robot. The surgical robotics market is a growing one, projected to reach $18.4 bln by 2027, presenting a big opportunity for Sony.
However, healthcare is not the only sector the company is targeting; it is also exploring logistics, construction, entertainment, retail, and more. This makes sense, given that robots have become increasingly seen as the future and that the latest technology makes them more sophisticated and capable.
Recent Advancements involving Robotics
The robotics industry is growing exponentially as robots slowly become a part of our daily lives. In some parts of the world, this has already started happening.
At the headquarters of the South Korean technology firm Naver, about 100 rookie service bots deliver coffee and packages. China, meanwhile, is using a machine gun-equipped robot dog in the military. In Australia, the government has published its National Robotics Strategy to grow its robotics and automation ecosystem.
With each passing year, robots are becoming more advanced, and artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to advance this branch of engineering and computer science, which involves the conception, design, production, and operation of robots.
When it comes to advancement in robotics, Sony itself has been making a lot of strides. This year, the company had its fully autonomous robot LEV-2 capturing SLIM landing on the moon. LEV-2 is described as the world’s smallest and lightest lunar exploration robot, which was released onto the lunar surface, where it autonomously found the SLIM, took pictures, and delivered them to Earth.
But there are a lot more exciting things happening in the robotics space. Multi-tasking bots are being developed for use in fast-food restaurants. For instance, Momentum Machines created a bot that can whip up a hamburger in 10 seconds. Meanwhile, robots like UR3 by Universal Robots can build their own replacement, performing a variety of tasks, such as painting, gluing, and soldering.
Simultaneously, a noticeable trend is the use of robots to assist humans with repetitive motions, heavy lifting, or tasks in dangerous environments. In sectors like aerospace, logistics, and automotive industries, the adoption of mobile manipulators is increasing. Equipped with cameras, sensors, and manipulator arms, these robots can manipulate objects, perform inspections, and navigate complex environments.
Tech giants like Google and Amazon are also extensively involved in robotics. Google is planning to produce worker robots with multiple personalities that users can download from a cloud-based system and recently acquired a patent for this innovation. The company has already deployed a fleet of 53 AutoRT robots into its office buildings, where they have conducted tens of thousands of trials. Some of these robots were controlled remotely by human operators, while others operated either autonomously using Google’s RT-2 AI learning model or on a script.
This year, Google’s DeepMind robotics team announced new advances to help robots make better, faster, and safer decisions. These included a “Robot Constitution,” a neural network architecture called SARA-RT, and an RT-Trajectory to help robots perform specific physical tasks better.
Meanwhile, Amazon has been deploying robots at its operations facilities. Earlier this month, an Amazon warehouse got a 5-foot-9-inch robot called Digit that resembles a human. Currently, in the testing phase, Digit is only focused on one simple task: picking up empty yellow boxes and transporting them to a conveyor several feet away, repeatedly all day long.
Humanoid robots like Digit have seen an investment boom, with startups in this nascent field attracting as much as $1.6 billion in venture capital in the last five years, according to PitchBook data.
Scientists are also taking cues from nature to create more advanced robots. As we noted in our previous articles, scientists are studying whirligig beetles’ ability to achieve high speed and acceleration to develop uncrewed robotic ships. Octopus is another popular animal studied for their suckers and brain to create flexible robots that can react to their environment with much more sensitivity and accuracy.
The salamander’s movement inspired the creation of Pleurobot, while the snake’s movement has been replicated in Snakebot. Additionally, Boston Dynamics’ Spot, resembling a headless yellow dog, is designed to inspect factories, construction sites, and hazardous environments. This robot can operate 24 hours a day without interventions, charge itself autonomously, and dynamically replan around new obstacles.
The innovations don’t stop there. Robots are now being designed to combat deadly diseases, provide companionship, and offer therapeutic assistance. Digital twins are being used to optimize a physical system’s performance by creating a virtual replica, while unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) powered by AI are completing tasks independently.
Concluding Thoughts
As we saw, the robotics industry is experiencing rapid growth, driven by advancements in AI, machine learning, vision technologies, sensors, and other cutting-edge tech that have significantly improved robots’ capabilities. The robotics market is actually expected to grow to $45 bln by 2028.
These advancements in technology have led to investment in and development of robots, which have grown at a fast pace for the last many years. After all, robots enhance productivity and accuracy, reduce cost and risk, and offer consistency, flexibility, and precision. These attributes make robots invaluable across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, logistics, retail, construction, mining, chemical, automotive, electronics, defense, and hospitality.
As a result, companies and governments have been actively engaged in advancing the field of robotics to enhance the capabilities of humans in unprecedented ways.
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