Professor Middleton has been involved in the development of robotic surgery and the use of computer navigation in surgery since 1997 when he published a paper titled “Active compliance in robotic surgery – the use of force control as a dynamic constraint.” More recently Professor Middleton and Associate Professor Wainwright have collaborated with colleagues from the Faculty of Science & Technology at Bournemouth University to publish a review of the current literature on virtual reality based training in orthopaedic surgery. Further work on the use of virtual reality training simulators in orthopaedics continues within ORI and with academic partners from the BU National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA), and also leading industry partners. ORI is now working in collaboration with VirtaMed in the Netherlands in developing world leading virtual reality trainers. This has resulted in ORI having the first VirtaMed hip arthroscopy training simulator in the world.

Video courtesy of VirtaMed visual communication team.