Robots May Soon Perform Battlefield Surgery
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James Joyner | Monday, March 28, 2005 |
The Army Times reports that robots may be performing battlefield surgery on wounded soldiers within a decade.
Robots may someday perform battlefield surgery (Army Times – AP)
The Pentagon is awarding $12 million in grants on Monday to develop an unmanned âtrauma podâ designed to use robots to perform full scalpel-and-stitch surgeries on wounded soldiers in battlefield conditions.
The researchers who pitched the Defense Department on the idea have prepared a futuristic âconcept videoâ that seems straight out of a teen fantasy game, showing with full color and sound effects the notion that robots in unmanned vehicles can operate on soldiers under enemy fire and then evacuate them. âThe main challenge is how can we get high-quality medical care onto the battlefield as close to the action and as close to the soldiers as possible,â said John Bashkin, head of business development at SRI International, a nonprofit laboratory that often handles Defense Department research. âRight now, the resources are pretty limited to what a medic can carry with him.â
SRI researchers caution that the project remains at least a decade away from appearing on any battlefields. Surgeons will need to manipulate the robot in real time, using technology that prevents any delays between their commands and the robotâs actions. The âtrauma podâ 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.
This would be a huge leap, indeed. We already have variants of this, as anyone who has had laser eye surgery knows. Not only could a trauma pod carry more supplies, but treatment of soldiers wounded on the battlefield could begin without risking getting a medic killed in the process.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Let's concentrate on Bush's plan to put men on Mars, first.
Then maybe we should figure out how to get that other "teen fantasy game"--Reagan's Star Wars--to work.
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