One of the things I love most about surgical robotics is that it never stops surprising me.
Just yesterday I discovered that Bitrack, the robotic surgical platform developed by the Spanish company Rob Surgical, has already obtained a CE mark. That means this is far more than a concept or an early prototype, it is a clinically approved system with a real development journey behind it.
Fortunately, at some moment, in today’s connected world where news travel almost instantly, they should reach me (in this case thanks to Steve Bell, who shared the news on LinkedIn).
At the same time, it raises an interesting question: how many soft-tissue robotic surgery platforms can the market realistically absorb? Every year new systems emerge, each trying to solve the same challenges with a slightly different approach. It will be fascinating to see which technologies ultimately find their place in clinical practice (we will discuss it in another post).
So, what is Bitrack?
In just a few words, it is a multiport robotic platform featuring four robotic arms mounted on a single patient-side cart, with no distal arm support, following a design philosophy similar to other established systems in the field. One interesting technical feature is its passive remote center: rather than actively controlling the pivot point at the trocar, the mechanism is designed to naturally maintain the instrument’s fulcrum at the abdominal wall, reducing forces on the access site through its mechanical architecture.
We cover the system in much greater detail in its dedicated page, where we’ll review its design and technical specifications.
Another robot joins the growing family of soft-tissue surgical systems, and the race is becoming more and more interesting.
J Granell. Jul 20, 2026