In this months IEEE Spectrum magazine there's an interesting article about Microsoft's efforts in robotics called Robots, Incorporated by Steven Cherry.
The article describes the team that created Microsoft Robotics Studio, how the group came to be, some of the software technologies, and an overview of the Microsoft's strategy in the Robotics marketplace.
What prompted this post is an example of how robotics might be used for medical purposes:
Imagine a robot helping a recovering heart-attack patient get some exercise by walking her down a hospital corridor, carrying her intravenous medicine bag, monitoring her heartbeat and other vital signs, and supporting her weight if she weakens.
Also, in the discussion about multi-threaded task management:
Or there might arise two unrelated but equally critical tasks, such as walking beside a hospital patient and simultaneously regulating the flow of her intravenous medications.
It's clear that these are just illustrative examples and there's no attempt to delve into the complexities of how to achieve these types of tasks. What I think is enlightening is that it provides examples of what the expectations are for robotics in medicine.
There are many research efforts in this area, but there's not really a lot of commercialization yet. There are numerous efforts in Robotic Surgery and robotic prosthetics (e.g. see iWalk) hold a lot of promise for improving lives. It's not exactly robotics, but the integration of an insulin pump with real-time continuous glucose monitoring for diabetes management (see the MiniMed device) can certainly be considered the application of "intelligent" technology.
I think that the expectations for the future use of robots for medical purposes are as realistic as any other potential use. There are some areas where the technological hurdles are very high, e.g. neural interfacing (see BrainGate), but many practical medical uses will have the same set of challenges as any other robotic application. Human safety will have to become a primary issue anytime a robot is interacting with people. Manufacturers of medical devices have the advantage that risk analysis and regulatory requirements are already part of their development process. Cost is certainly the other major challenge for the use of robots in both the consumer and medical markets. No matter how good the solution is, it must still be affordable.
