This paper focuses on robotic surgery, an extension of surgeons’ “hand” technique that has made rapid progressin recent decades, and discusses its current status and future developments.The term “surgical robot” is generally associated with da Vinci, which performs endoscopic surgery remotely,but it is a type of surgical assist robot that operates according to the surgeon’s instructions. Based on their functions and roles, surgical robot technologies can be divided into three main categories: “image/information-guidedrobots”, “leader-follower robots” and “assist/support robots”. This paper describes the roles and operating principles of each of these categories and introduces some representative commercialized robots. The relationship toadvances in AI and the degree of autonomy of robots will also be discussed, as well as challenges to their implementation in society.
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