Using medical robots for minimally invasive and precise surgery is increasingly supporting the surgeon's work and making operations safer and less straining on patients.

A 3U CompactPCI® SBC F17 with an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor is used to control a medical robot that performs knee surgery. The COTS computer is equipped with all state-of-the-art PC interfaces and has the application software stored in the on-board Flash memory. The interactive haptic robotics platform utilizes tactile-guided robotics and patient-specific visualization to prepare the knee joint for the insertion and alignment of resurfacing implants through a keyhole incision. The restorative surgical robot enables orthopedic surgeons to treat knee disease with consistently reproducible precision.

A similar computer platform is used to control a tele-robotics surgical system with tactile sensing capabilities. A 3U CompactPCI® SBC F14 with Intel® Pentium® processor is the heart of the system. The F603 side-card delivers additional UART and USB interfaces and ANSI standard M-Module™ mezzanine cards M65 add CAN bus functionality.

In any type of laparoscopic intervention, the robot allows for the quick insertion and replacement of surgical instruments independent from the patient's positioning on the operation table. It is also possible to simultaneously use up to five of its robotic arms, operated by one or two surgeons.