Chinese Scientists Develop Medical Robots to Avoid Surgery Obstacles

Surgical team is seen during a by-pass implantation operation using the Da Vinci robot at the MSWiA (Ministry of Interior and Administration) hospital in Warsaw Poland, March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
Surgical team is seen during a by-pass implantation operation using the Da Vinci robot at the MSWiA (Ministry of Interior and Administration) hospital in Warsaw Poland, March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
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Chinese Scientists Develop Medical Robots to Avoid Surgery Obstacles

Surgical team is seen during a by-pass implantation operation using the Da Vinci robot at the MSWiA (Ministry of Interior and Administration) hospital in Warsaw Poland, March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
Surgical team is seen during a by-pass implantation operation using the Da Vinci robot at the MSWiA (Ministry of Interior and Administration) hospital in Warsaw Poland, March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Chinese scientists have made progress in their research on the active obstacle avoidance of continuum robots, a development that has the potential to elevate the intelligence of robot-assisted surgeries.

The research was conducted by a team led by Liu Hao, a researcher at the Shenyang Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Zhang Zhongtao's team at the Beijing Friendship Hospital, which is affiliated with the Capital Medical University. The findings have been published online in the International Journal of Robotics Research.

When operating in complex environments in the cavities of the human body, continuum robots can effectively avoid collisions with human tissue or between multiple robots, which is conducive to ensuring the safety and quality of a surgery.

However, due to the flexible structure of continuum robots and the irregularity of these environments, expressing this spatial and morphological relationship and achieving active, safe interaction pose challenges to enhancing the robots' capabilities in active obstacle avoidance, according to a report by the Chinese news agency, Xinhua.

To address the issue, the researchers proposed a framework for the control of active obstacle avoidance, including a concise expression of the geometric model of continuum robots and a method to detect collision between a robot and an obstacle of any shape.

The framework is an effective and feasible approach for continuum robots to conduct safe surgeries, and has the potential to promote the level of intelligence in robot-assisted surgeries, according to the researchers.



Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
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Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)

Nearly 1,000 firefighters and helicopters battled a wildfire about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of France's second-largest city Marseille on Friday, but officials said lower temperatures and increased humidity had improved the situation.

The 240-hectare (593 acres) wildfire flared up a week after a separate conflagration reached the northwestern outskirts of Marseille, forcing people to evacuate or into lockdown and temporarily shuttering the area's airport.

Pierre Bepoix, the colonel of rescue operations and deputy director for the area's firefighters, said 150 people had been evacuated, but firefighters had managed to save 150 homes and portions of the area's forests.

"It was a fire that swept through relatively dense vegetation ... which made our work particularly complicated," Bepoix told Reuters. "Obviously, priority was given to the preservation and protection of these homes and the lives that could be in these buildings."

Local officials said in a statement that 120 homes had been threatened by the fire, adding that it was not possible yet to identify any possible damage to them, and that two firefighters had been injured.

Meanwhile in Spain, a wildfire that broke out on Thursday evening in the central Toledo province and could be seen from downtown Madrid, ravaged 3,200 hectares of woodland.

Regional emergency services said early on Friday firefighters had secured the perimeter, though there were concerns over strong winds and high temperatures forecast throughout the day.