The BIROMED-Lab has developed a minimal-invasive robot for cutting bone with high power laser light within the MIRACLE project. The miniature robot can be inserted into the human body through small incisions. Inside the body, e.g. in the human knee joint, the robot fixes itself to the target tissue and can guide the laser light at high precision to the target location. When the robot has performed all necessary cuts, it can “walk” to a new position on the target tissue and continue its work.

The advantages of minimal-invasive laser cutting with a robot are:

• cuts will be executed as planned
• access holes are small
• (thermal) damage to adjacent tissue is minimal
• cuts can have predefined functions (e.g. stability by forms, guidance for reassembly by design)
• healing times are shorter than mechanical cuts.

Since one year, we also investigate the advantage of laser cuts for regenerative cartilage surgery to treat arthritis.