TransEnterix, a North Carolina firm, won FDA clearance for its Senhance Surgical Robotic System. This is only the second company that’s offering an abdominal surgical robotic system to receive FDA’s green light, following Intuitive Surgical‘s da Vinci systems, the first of which was introduced nearly two decades ago.

The multi-port system features some pretty high-tech capabilities, such as haptic feedback that lets the surgeon feel when the instruments come in contact with other objects, including tissues, and an eye-controlled endoscope that moves its point of view to follow the user’s gaze.

The instruments that the robot manipulates are reusable, helping to manage the cost of procedures, and the entire system is built on an open architecture to allow it to interface with existing laparoscopic technologies, lowering the total required investment. Quick instrument swaps help to move things forward, helping to shorten the time that individual procedures consume, further reducing costs.

The surgeon sits comfortably at the control panel and uses 3D glasses to see the surgical scene on a computer display. There’s no need to stick one’s head into a periscope-like viewing port, which helps to keep the surgeon aware of everything what’s going on in the OR. The instrument controls resemble those of traditional laparoscopic instruments, helping to transfer skills honed during conventional minimally invasive procedures to the robotic system.