MEDICAL ROBOTS
Battlefields are dangerous. We once imagine and expected future wars to look like the science fiction movies we are watching right now where all kinds of robots such as Iron man, terminators, and super soldiers replace humans to save the world. Well, it is safe to say that all these imaginations might come true now.
Soldiers risk their lives for their countries. For soldiers who injured in battlefield, they have to retreat and seek for medical facilities immediately. For that reason, human medics play an important role in the battlefield to rescue injured soldiers. Before the invention of robot medics, while there are still no other options, human medics had to undertake this risky job.
We should be excited now as robot medics have started to show their silver faces to the world.
Imagine Baymax appeared in our lives!
Photo By : Lassannn, (2015). Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.. [image] Available at: http://imgur.com/gallery/PwUdnlI [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Robot medics aren’t something new in this century. There are few types of robot medics, such as:
(i) Medical Robot
-
A prototype medical robot from Hstar Technologies of Cambridge can lift and carry patients.
(ii) Telepresence Robot
-
Allow off-site medical professionals to move, look around, communicate and participate from remote locations.
Photo By : http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/qkVyAEdCNTg/0.jpg
(iii) The Raven Surgical Robotic System
-
These robots either allow surgical operations to be carried out with greater precision than an unaided human surgeon, or allow remote surgery where a human surgeon is not physically present with the patient.
(iv) The Da Vinci Surgical Robot
-
It is controlled by a human surgeon, and it conducted thousands of complex surgeons.
(v) Disinfection Robot
-
It has the capability to disinfect a whole room in mere minutes, generally using ultraviolet light technology. They are being used to fight Ebola virus disease.
(vi) Bio-Robot
-
Researchers from the University of Illinois have produced a new generation of muslce-powered biological robots, or "bio-robots", that can be stimulated using electrical impulses.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Medical Robots
There are many good reasons why robot medics should be used in the military. Robots are able to deal with more risks, especially bombing raids, without putting human medics’ lives in danger. Besides that, robots are able to save injured soldiers from hard to reach places easily compared to human medics. Also, the use of surgical robots enables the recovery time from injuries to be shorter as compared to patients who have had traditional surgery.
However, there are drawbacks as well. It might be difficult or more time consuming for medical practitioners to get used to this system as they are used to traditional methods. Besides that, no one knows the extent these robots might be able to achieve in terms of technical challenges. Some robots have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy and there is still the possibility of robots malfunctioning. Moreover, there is still a need for large amounts of money and time to invest in research and development efforts, resulting in high costs for proprietary technology.
the future of warfare:
are Robot medics Necessary?
When we imagine the future of warfare, we often visualize robot medics, robot soldiers, and other machines replacing humans on the battlefield. Are we at the beginning of an unavoidable process, leading to robot revolution? Or, can robots brings harm to human being by making us lazy?
In my opinion, I think that invention of medical robots is very exciting, because there are lots of potential applications. However, if robots replace human medics on the battlefield, I personally think that medical robots should only be used when it is fully developed because it is still not safe enough to be feasible on the battlefield.
Linnea, (2015). History. [online] Available at: http://linni101.weebly.com/history.html [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Atherton, K. (2015). US Army Wants Robot Medics To Carry Wounded Soldiers Out Of Battle. [online] Popular Science. Available at: http://www.popsci.com/army-wants-robot-medics [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Telegraph.co.uk, (2009). Robots could replace army medics in battle. [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/4940737/Robots-could-replace-army-medics-in-battle.html [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Biomed Brown Edu, (n.d.). Disadvantages to Robotic Surgery. [online] Available at: http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2004_Groups/Group02/Group%2002%20Website/robodisadvan.htm [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Gockowski, A. (2015). Robot Medics To Head To Battle. [online] The Daily Caller. Available at: http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/25/robot-medics-to-head-to-battle/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Thomson, I. (2015). Robot surgeons kill 144 patients, hurt 1,391, malfunction 8,061 times. [online] Theregister.co.uk. Available at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/21/robot_surgery_kills_americans/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2015].
Written by: Lee Xin Nie
13000252
Publish date: 6.11.2015 22:30
© 2015 by The Cool Kids. Proudly Created.