The Fusion of Robotics and Imaging: A Vision of the Future

Medical robotics has evolved significantly over the past decades, with more robotic systems than ever now in hospitals. The use of robots for surgery has already revolutionized the surgical landscape by providing high accuracy, greater surgeon dexterity, 3-dimensional visualization capabilities, and the potential for telesurgery. At the same time, diverse medical imaging modalities such as X-ray, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound can provide meaningful visual information required for pre- and intraoperative planning and guidance, which is particularly important for robotic surgery given the surgeon’s limited direct view of the surgical workspace in minimally invasive procedures. This review provides an overview of robotics technology for surgery and image acquisition and describes the main steps involved in the processing of medical imaging and its use. The authors also share their views on what the future of robotics and imaging may look like for surgical applications given the recent advances in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning.