Do you already know Ruona? -Dukchik

RONA is the smart surgical assistant of the future. You can read here what the robot can do – and why it's so impressive.

“Ruona, give me the scalpel!” It may soon become part of every surgeon's standard phrase. RONA stands for Robotic Nurse Assistant – the assistance aims to ease the burden on operating room staff and address the shortage of skilled workers. Equipped with a 3D camera and sensors for depth perception and vibration, the robotic arm supports surgeons in precise handling of surgical instruments. You can see exactly what it looks like here:

But how does it work? Using voice commands, the robotic arm wakes up with the Rona upgrade, and a speech-to-text model processes the command and recognizes the surgeon's intent. RONA is able to distinguish and locate surgical instruments and sense their direction. This is impressive because Rhona works with real people in the operating room and thus faces completely new challenges.

What makes Rona so special?

We all know industrial robots that autonomously assemble car parts on assembly lines. But this only works because these robots follow fixed, repetitive processes and are not programmed to adapt to new environments – after all, they don't have to. Rhona, on the other hand, has the difficulty of never placing tools at a perfect 90 degree angle and in exactly the same place on the stairs. This requires intelligent familiarization with tools and the ability to learn from experience. That's why RONA uses several machine learning models that have been developed and curated specifically for this task. This recognition system allows RONA to recognize and select instruments dynamically.

Once the RONA recognizes the desired tool, the specially developed handle picks up the tool. The hand detection system, stereoscopic distance sensor and vibration sensor work together to ensure safe transfer of the instrument from the RONA handle to the surgeon.

Why actually open source?

These functions can be implemented through simple hardware additions to the robotic arm, including a standard 3D camera, a vibration sensor, and a specially designed gripper. However, the core component of the Rona system is the open source software that forms the core of the upgrade.

The advantage of using open source software is that it includes a wide community of developers from different regions. This allows development to move forward more quickly. In addition, everyone can take a look under the digital hood, making the system more secure and reliable. This means that no error goes undetected for a long time. Anyone interested can On GitHub Take a look at the icons.

Rona is not only a smart little assistant in the operating room of the future supporting surgical teams, but she also demonstrates how advanced technology can transform medicine through the innovative use of machine learning and open source software.

You can find more information about Rona here.

Image source: Ideal Hua, Unsplash