Challenges Of Flexible Surgical Robots: Review

A soft surgical robot in a minimally invasive surgery offers flexibility and ease of operation. The robot can be used to easily access the lesion and perform surgical processes even in a narrow space within the abdominal cavity during surgery. This review paper introduces the latest meso-scale soft surgical robots and describes their design and limitations. This paper discusses various surgical robots used in various medical fields targeting soft tissues only. Image guidance techniques, stiffness modulation control of the soft joints, and materials of the robot body to overcome limitations of the existing soft surgical robots are a main focus of this review.