Snake robot is large-scale surgical aid

A new surgical aid, called the i-Snake (Imaging-Sensing Navigated and Kinematically Enhanced) robot, will be developed in the UK. It aims to provide a platform to extend the use of keyhole techniques, breaking new ground across the fields of surgery and engineering.

[The] i-Snake will enable more complex diagnostic and therapeutic procedures than are currently possible.

Professor Lord Darzi

Division of Surgery, Oncology, Reproductive Biology & Anaesthetics

ICL

Imperial College London

The small snake-like robot will incorporate state-of-the-art imaging and intuitive manipulation technologies, allowing surgeons to carry out more complex and demanding procedures within the body, previously only possible using more invasive surgical approaches.

A world-renowned team from Imperial College London (ICL) has been awarded more than 2.1 million pounds from the Wellcome Trust medical charity to develop the i-Snake over the next four years.

The multidisciplinary research team includes Professor Lord Darzi of Denham, of the Division of Surgery, Oncology, Reproductive Biology & Anaesthetics - one of the UK’s leading surgeons in the field of minimum invasive surgery - and Professor Guang-Zhong Yang, the director of Medical Imaging & Robotics at ICL’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

Making surgical history

Using special motors, multiple sensing mechanisms and imaging tools at its head, the flexible i-Snake robot will act as the surgeons’ hands and eyes, allowing them to navigate difficult and restrictive regions of the body.

Among the many possible applications of i-Snake is the clinical investigation of the alimentary tract, or complex, multi-vessel coronary bypass surgery.

Professor Lord Darzi said: “The unrivalled imaging and sensing capabilities coupled with the accessibility and sensitivity of i-Snake will enable more complex diagnostic and therapeutic procedures than are currently possible.

The project represents a unique cross-disciplinary collaboration within Imperial College in imaging, sensing and robotics.

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang

Director, Medical Imaging & Robotics

ICL’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering

“The cost benefits of i-Snake include earlier, cheaper and less invasive treatment, faster recovery and procedure times as well as an increase in patient care and quality of life.”

Professor Yang added: “The i-Snake uses a biologically inspired articulation design to allow flexible articulation of the instrument tip. It combines both intra- and inter-operative image-guided surgical navigation with dynamic active constraints for improved surgical precision and safety. The project represents a unique cross-disciplinary collaboration within Imperial College in imaging, sensing and robotics.”

The future of surgery

Dr Ted Bianco, the director of technology transfer at the Wellcome Trust, said: “Gone are the days when the surgeon’s knife ruled in the operating theatre. The future of surgery is in smart devices like i-Snake.”

Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research.

The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research in the UK and internationally, spending about 500 million pounds each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas.

Professor Lord Darzi is the Parliamentary under secretary of state for the House of Lords at the Department of Health. In addition to his ministerial duties he maintains two research and clinical activities at ICL where he holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery and is an honorary consultant at St Mary’s Hospital and The Royal Marsden.

Academic expertise

Professor Lord Darzi has pioneered many new techniques and technologies, including the first fully integrated surgical robotics systems in the UK, the “da Vinci system” - a teleoperative machine featuring wrested instruments with seven degrees of freedom that has allowed surgeons to perform procedures with increased precision.

ICL was rated the world’s fifth best university in the 2007 The Times’ Higher Education Supplement university rankings. The science-based institution has a reputation for excellence in teaching and research and attracts 12,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality.