The essential human-machine interface for surgery: biological signals transmission

The concept of a machine-augmented surgeon will become a widespread reality only after the barrier of harnessing the computer as a tool has been successfully accomplished. The prospects of surgical robots for computer-assisted surgery, for telemedicine, and for teleoperation-cybersurgery-will be greatly enhanced when computers are no longer considered a separate component that links a system together, they must lose their identity, becoming transparent. The ideal human-machine interface for surgery is one juxtaposed between surgeon and patient that derives digital biosignals directly from both bodies, transmitting them transparently without perceptible delay, and distributes them bilaterally into afferent (sensory) and efferent (operator or effector) limbs. This ideal human-computer interface will be based upon biosignal processing and will optimize the technology to the physiology, in what has been called biocybernetics. Applications of biosignal interfaces are being developed in entertainment, medicine, commerce, defense, and in sales and distribution (Table 1).