Medical & healthcare robotics: a roadmap for enhanced precision, safety, and efficacy
Abstract Medical robotics holds transformative potential for healthcare. Robots excel in tasks requiring precision, including surgery and minimally invasive interventions, and they can enhance diagnostics through improved automated imaging techniques. Despite the application potentials, the adoption of robotics still faces obstacles, such as high costs, technological limitations, regulatory issues, and concerns about patient safety and data security. This roadmap, authored by an international team of experts, critically assesses the state of medical robotics, highlighting existing challenges and emphasizing the need for novel research contributions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes. It explores advancements in machine learning, highlighting the importance of trustworthiness and interpretability in robotics, the development of soft robotics for surgical and rehabilitation applications, and the role of image-guided robotic systems in diagnostics and therapy. Mini, micro, and nano robotics for surgical interventions, as well as rehabilitation and assistive robots, are also discussed. Furthermore, the roadmap addresses service robots in healthcare, covering navigation, logistics, and telemedicine. For each of the topics addressed, current challenges and future directions to improve patient care through medical robotics are suggested.
Authors
- Dimitrios Giakoumis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1844-186X)
- Oliver Ozioko (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0208-5143)
- Christos Bergeles (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9152-3194)
- Panagiotis Vartholomeos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0649-8546)
- Andreas S. Panayides (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9829-7946)
- Dimitris K. Iakovidis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5027-5323)
- Matteo Cianchetti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9016-8039)
- Zhidong Su (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6592-0666)
- Gastone Ciuti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0855-7976)
- Panagiotis Polygerinos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1976-8728)
- Gerard Cummins (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3285-4647)
- Eftychios G. Christoforou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9414-8169)
- Evangelos B. Mazomenos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0357-5996)
- Ioannis Poulakakis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7045-1075)
- Joe Philpott (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5853-6551)
- Francisco Vasconcelos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4609-1177)
- Danail Stoyanov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0980-3227)
- Constantinos S. Pattichis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1271-8151)
- Ravinder Dahiya (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3858-3841)
- Petros Toupas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3836-071X)
- Carlo Seneci (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5948-5458)
- Min‐Soo Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3478-1277)
- Bradley J. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7739-7996)
- Weihua Sheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0810-2042)
- Dimitrios Tzovaras
- Alexia Le Gall (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4961-0487)
- Salvador Pané Vidal
- Odysseas Simatos
- Taha Erdem
Institutions
- Oklahoma State University (US)
- Northeastern University (US)
- Piaggio (Italy) (IT)
- University of Thessaly (GR)
- Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (IT)
- University of Nicosia (CY)
- National Technical University of Athens (GR)
- King's College London (GB)
- University of Derby (GB)
- Mediterranean University (ME)
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (CH)
- Oklahoma State University System (US)
- University of Cyprus (CY)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Cyprus Research and Innovation Center (Cyprus) (CY)
- Hellenic Agency for Local Development and Local Government (GR)
- University College London (GB)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Measurement Science and Technology
- Published
- 2025-09-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6501/ae09bf
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Biomedical and Engineering Education
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.02