references. An annotated version of the bibliography is included as Supplementary Materials which is organized by hot topic and includes the number of times the paper was cited by other papers (Web of Science) and by patents (Lens.org) at the time this paper went to press. Robotic laparoscopy Laparoscopic robotics is perhaps the most mature and certainly the most commercially successful subfield of medical robotics. Over the past decade, progress has been made on three fronts: clinical, commercial, and academic. A rapidly growing majority of research in laparoscopic robots has been clinical. Many studies aim to compare the efficacy of the robot with standard (usually manual laparoscopic) techniques for different surgical procedures. Examples include studies on radical prostatectomy, radical cystectomy for bladder cancer, rectal cancer resection, and hysterectomy. Commercially, the decade has seen continuing evolutionary development of the da Vinci robot made by Intuitive Surgical. This system now offers the ability to mount endoscopic and laparoscopic instruments on any arm (earlier models had a specialized endoscope arm), semiautomated arm and patient cart positioning, and improvements to the instrument coupling. Over the past decade, at least 50 different instruments have been released for the da Vinci. Furthermore, the da Vinci’s use has grown rapidly, with more than 1.2 million procedures completed in 2019 according to their annual report. At the same time, the initial patents that had given Intuitive Surgical a monopoly position in robotic laparoscopic surgery began to expire during the past decade, resulting in several large medical device companies launching initiatives to develop their own robots that are currently being introduced. Academic research progressed on two fronts over the decade. The first has used laparoscopic robots as a platform for developing enhanced capabilities. Major subtopics on this front include the introduction of open platform robots for research use, initial efforts into the development of surgical automation, and continuing work on the integration of force sensing into laparoscopic tools. The second research direction in laparoscopic surgery has considered new robot architectures that might reduce procedural invasiveness. Table. 1. Hot topics of the decade. Hot topic Seminal references 1. Robotic laparoscopy (7–18) 2. Nonlaparoscopic robots for minimally invasive surgery (19–24) 3. Assistive wearable robots (25–33) 4. Therapeutic rehabilitation robots (34–41) 5. Capsule robots (42–48) 6. Magnetic actuation (49–52) 7. Soft robotics (53–61) 8. Continuum robotics (62–69) Downloaded from https://www.science.org on November 16, 2021 Dupont et al., Sci. Robot. 6, eabi8017 (2021) 10 November 2021 SCIENCE ROBOTICS | REVIEW 3 of 15 Single-port systems have received the most attention, including a recently introduced commercial system from Intuitive, the da Vinci SP. There has also been some research into robots that are inserted into the body and then detached mechanically, powered by tethers or external fields. Each of these topics is described below. Open platform laparoscopic robots New robot capabilities cannot typically be developed and tested in isolation. For results to be reproducible and comparable, it is important for such research to be performed on high-performance test platforms that are well characterized. It is a huge and duplicative undertaking for an individual research group to develop their own laparoscopic robot system. Recognizing this need, two groups introduced open-source robot platforms for the research community. The first was the Raven II, a nonclinical robotic surgery research platform that compactly supports two to four laparoscopic instruments (including da Vinci Si instruments) in a work volume typical of abdominal laparoscopic surgery (7). Intuitive Surgical collaborated with several academic researchers to then introduce a research platform consisting of refurbished da Vinci Si patient and surgeon-side mechanisms, stereoscopic display hardware with a custom electronics, and a control package—the da Vinci Research Kit or dVRK (8). Neither system is certified for human use, but both have performed Fig. 1. Example clinical applications for the eight hot topics of the decade. Starting at 8 o’clock and proceeding clockwise: Laparoscopic robots are the success story of medical robotics with applications including radical prostatectomy, radical cystectomy for bladder cancer, rectal cancer resection, and hysterectomy. Continuum robots are robotic versions of manual medical instruments including catheters, bronchoscopes, uteroscopes, and colonoscopes. Nonlaparoscopic robots have been developed for varying applications including electrode implantation in the brain and microsurgery inside the eye. Soft robots have been used, e.g., to create soft sleeves to assist heart contraction and for hand rehabilitation of daily living tasks. Assistive wearable robots are used to augment or replace arm and leg motion in the cases of motion impairment or amputation. Capsule robots are pill-sized devices that are swallowed for endoscopic diagnosis and treatment of the alimentary canal. Therapeutic rehabilitation robots assist patients with neurological injuries in performing repetitive movements to relearn tasks such as walking and