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THE WORLD's pioneers in robotic surgery are invited to take part in the Surgical Robot Challenge 2016, with the competition finals due to take place from 20 to 27 June 2016.
The international competition is held every year, and showcases cutting-edge advances in surgical robotic technologies. Teams from around the world will bring their surgical robots to London (where the challenge is being held in 2016) to demonstrate their latest innovations.
Each team will have three hours to set up and demonstrate their technologies to an independent judging panel consisting of surgeons and pioneers in the field. The prize fund is worth 10,000 GBP.
The first Surgical Robot Challenge took place in June 2015, with 20 teams from around the world demonstrating their surgical robot technologies. The winning design was a concentric tube robot – a miniature snake-like robot, only a few millimetres in diameter, which can be controlled from the popular da Vinci Surgical System console.
Other winning designs included a minimally invasive robot instrument that can both look and feel for cancer deep within the body using a combined ultrasound probe and pressure sensor array, and an automatic camera control robot that frees the surgeon from the task of camera manipulation so that they can concentrate on high-level decision making and precise control of their surgical instruments.
The competition is being organised by the EPSRC UK-RAS Network, a network of leading UK universities that specialise in Robotics and Autonomous Systems. The competition is open to international competitors, some of which will be using technology from Intuitive Surgical and KUKA Robotics, with the aim of fostering collaboration, sharing resources and tackling the most complex technical and clinical challenges in robotic surgery.