Robotic Surgery has seen a rapid growth in recent years, with a number of commercial systems now available. The advantages and disadvantages of robotic surgery should be contrasted with the associated areas of Computer Aided Surgery (CAS) and with conventional surgery. Robotic surgery has the benefit that it can be used minimally invasively, is generally very accurate, can make complex motions, and can be constrained to a safe region without tremor. Robots also do not get "lost" when working down small apertures, or tire when cutting repetitively. CAS systems often use camera-based tracking systems to track the location of tools as they move relative to the target. (also more recently termed Navigation systems). Whilst they are generally cheaper and simpler than robotic solutions, they do not constrain the surgeon. Thus cutting hard bone, for example, can cause the cutter to bounce off or dig-in when held by the surgeon in a CAS system. The relative merits of the various systems will be discussed, with examples given of systems, both industrially available and used for research, particularly those developed at Imperial College, London.

The largest commercial application of medical robots has been to support and move laporascopic cameras in minimal access surgery, with the surgeon commanding the robot to move appropriately by either voice control or by a head motion sensor. Other commercially available robots are used for orthopaedic surgery, in which the hip or knee is machined accurately by the robot to accept a prosthetic implant. Typically, the bones are clamped down and treated as fixed objects to which pre-operative images and plans can be directly applied. This is simpler than applying robots for soft tissue surgery, in which compensation is required (intra-operatively) to allow for the changing shape and position of the tissue during the procedure.

The benefits of the more recent telemanipulator and "hands-on" surgical robots will also be considered in relation to the more traditional "automated" systems. Finally, a vision of the future of medical robots will be presented.