Illustrating Russia’s and China’s willingness to strengthen their ties in the field of high technologies, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign fund, has agreed a partnership with several Russian and Chinese industry players to develop and manufacture medical robots.
According to the agreement, which was annonced Friday last week at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a “Russia-China Center for Medical Robots” will be established with participation from Skolkovo, the Russian international tech hub, Xixian Fengdong, a Chinese technopark, and Panther Healthcare, which specializes in the research, development, manufacture and sale of surgical devices and instruments in China.
Skolkovo plans to provide up to 150 million rubles (approximately $2.3 million at the current exchange rate) in grant financing for the new center, said Victor Vekselberg, President of the Skolkovo Foundation.
“Robotic surgery will become one of the main areas of growth in medicine’s hi-tech sector in the next decade,” he stated, adding that Skolkovo has “disruptive projects by Russian engineers and doctors, which have every chance of becoming leaders in this field.”
More compact and lighter robots
The present project was established by Russian scientists from the Institute of Design-Engineering Informatics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKTI RAS) jointly with the Department of Urology of Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry (MSUMD), with the assistance of Russia’s Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FASO).
This innovative concept for surgical robots aims to improve control mechanisms and the interaction between robots and surgeons.
“The robots have a number of unique features including being more compact, lighter and able to move with greater precision than existing models available,” claims Skolkovo, while production and maintenance costs are said to be much lower.
Located in the premises the Skolkovo technopark on the outskirts of Moscow, the Russia-China Center for Medical Robots will focus on scientific research, design work and software development, as well as the production of technologically complex robot components in Russia.
Considerable market opportunities
The next stage of the project, as announced by Skolkovo, will include the establishment of these medical robots in China — which is a considerable market for industrial robots.
A local platform will be created “to facilitate manufacture on an industrial scale with the use of leading Russian technologies and the most efficient production solutions,” and for international sales and maintenance purposes.
Russian robots already drew attention in China in April, when Wicron was awarded first prize in the robotics category of the Global Happiness Technology Challenge. This Russian startup startup presented a remote presence bot which allows users to observe the bot’s surroundings from their location via the Internet, an interact with people in those surroundings accordingly.
Another Russian startup, Promobot, has sold many of its promotional robots in China, according to the Skolkovo Foundation.
