Pentagon invests in robot medics for battlefields

THE Pentagon awarded $12 million (€9.3m) in grants yesterday to develop an unmanned "trauma pod" designed to use robots to perform full scalpel-and-stitch surgeries on wounded soldiers in the battlefield.

The researchers who pitched the US Defence Department on the idea have prepared a futuristic "concept video" that seems straight out of a teenage fantasy game, showing the notion that robots in unmanned vehicles can operate on soldiers under enemy fire and evacuate them.

"The main challenge is how can we get high-quality medical care on to the battlefield as close to the action and as close to the soldiers as possible," said John Bashkin, head of business development at SRI International, a laboratory that often handles Defence Department research.

"Right now, the resources are pretty limited to what a medic can carry with him."

SRI researchers warn, however, that the project remains at least a decade away from appearing on any battlefields. Surgeons will need to manipulate the robot in real time.

The "trauma pod" has to keep connected wirelessly without giving away its position to the enemy, and it has to be nimble and hardy enough to perform under fire. Still, some of the initial technology is already being put to use in hospitals.

SRI spearheaded the Pentagon's first such endeavour to develop a "telesurgery" system in the 1980s.

The resulting robot, dubbed the da Vinci Surgical System, proved to be too bulky and too dependent on too many humans to be used in battle.

But the Food and Drug Administration approved the da Vinci in 2000 for civilian medical use and surgeons now use the machines in about 300 hospitals worldwide to remove cancerous prostates and repair faulty heart valves.