About this Research Topic
The field of medical robotics has rapidly grown in recent years, offering healthcare professionals unprecedented features for preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Examples of medical applications for robotic manipulators include: teleoperated diagnostic systems (such as ultrasound imaging), minimally invasive surgery through endoscopic, laparoscopic, intraluminal and endoluminal approaches. This field is rapidly advancing in various areas related to structural design, materials, actuation and sensing modalities, control systems and intelligence. For example, the advent of untethered robots, soft robots, magneto- and electro-active robots, extrinsically actuated robots and pneumatic robots has increased the hopes for smaller, more dexterous, and more human-body-friendly medical robots. Also, embedding miniaturized or soft sensors within the medical robot's structure, or using sensor-free feedback estimation methods to control medical robots, have recently gained momentum in research.
With this Research Topic, we would like to generate a collection of state-of-the-art research that showcase various multidisciplinary approaches for taking on the challenges of developing medical robots for real-world application. Considering medical robots as medical devices, and while the research methods may vary on a case-by-case basis, the overall research approach shall follow an evidence-based, step-by-step transition from "clinical need" to "clinical requirements", "engineering requirement", "design", "verification", and finally "validation." A similar approach is mandated and expected by regulatory bodies around the world; therefore, it is imperative to familiarize the next generation of researchers with this research approach for real-world medical robot design examples.
The Robot Design Section of Frontiers in Robotics and AI is pleased to invite submissions for a Research Topic on "Medical Robots: From the clinical need to validation."
We welcome original research articles, reviews, and perspectives that contribute wholly or partially to the design of medical robots as medical devices. Within this theme, the submissions are encouraged, but not limited to address:
1. Identification of clinical needs and requirements for medical robots: surveys or original research on identification and justification of clinical requirements for various applications based on clinical evidence, standards, rationale, and experts' opinion,
2. Engineering and computational designs for clinical needs, including structural design and modelling, material selection and synthesis, actuation modalities, sensing principles and sensor-free estimators, control systems, decision-making and artificial intelligence,
3. Design of risk-aware robots and incorporation of risk-awareness as risk control strategies for medical robots
4. Design of validation studies for medical robots
5. Ethical and regulatory considerations for medical robots, especially in conjunction with the development and use of artificial intelligence in medical robots
6. clinical evaluation of medical robots, performance assessment of medical robots, clinical adoption of medical robots, and challenges and future directions in medical robotics
We welcome submissions from researchers, clinicians, engineers, industrialists, and policymakers working in the field of medical robotics. Manuscripts should be structured to reflect the researchers' approach to addressing a clinical need through robotic solutions and how they benchmarked the proposed solutions against the requirements (i.e., validation).
With this Research Topic, we would like to generate a collection of state-of-the-art research that showcase various multidisciplinary approaches for taking on the challenges of developing medical robots for real-world application. Considering medical robots as medical devices, and while the research methods may vary on a case-by-case basis, the overall research approach shall follow an evidence-based, step-by-step transition from "clinical need" to "clinical requirements", "engineering requirement", "design", "verification", and finally "validation." A similar approach is mandated and expected by regulatory bodies around the world; therefore, it is imperative to familiarize the next generation of researchers with this research approach for real-world medical robot design examples.
The Robot Design Section of Frontiers in Robotics and AI is pleased to invite submissions for a Research Topic on "Medical Robots: From the clinical need to validation."
We welcome original research articles, reviews, and perspectives that contribute wholly or partially to the design of medical robots as medical devices. Within this theme, the submissions are encouraged, but not limited to address:
1. Identification of clinical needs and requirements for medical robots: surveys or original research on identification and justification of clinical requirements for various applications based on clinical evidence, standards, rationale, and experts' opinion,
2. Engineering and computational designs for clinical needs, including structural design and modelling, material selection and synthesis, actuation modalities, sensing principles and sensor-free estimators, control systems, decision-making and artificial intelligence,
3. Design of risk-aware robots and incorporation of risk-awareness as risk control strategies for medical robots
4. Design of validation studies for medical robots
5. Ethical and regulatory considerations for medical robots, especially in conjunction with the development and use of artificial intelligence in medical robots
6. clinical evaluation of medical robots, performance assessment of medical robots, clinical adoption of medical robots, and challenges and future directions in medical robotics
We welcome submissions from researchers, clinicians, engineers, industrialists, and policymakers working in the field of medical robotics. Manuscripts should be structured to reflect the researchers' approach to addressing a clinical need through robotic solutions and how they benchmarked the proposed solutions against the requirements (i.e., validation).
Keywords: Medical robot, Rehabilitation, Surgical robot, Intervention, Clinical need, Verification and Validation, Design
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
