Developed by Restoration Robotics, ARTAS is the first robotic hair transplant system in the world. The FDA granted clearance in 2011, and at the time of this writing, over a hundred ARTAS units are being used by hair transplant clinics throughout in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. The technology is extremely new, and the Restoration Robotics is actively using feedback from each procedure to continuously update and refine the software on an ongoing basis.
This specialized automated procedure works in the following way:
This method of hair restoration:
At the same time, this method of hair restoration can also:
In the early years, the ARTAS robot extracted donor hairs using a punch that many surgeons considered too large. Restoration Robotics has since managed to scale down the size of the punches, thereby increasing the graft’s overall survival rate. The robot was also very limited with the areas that it could extract follicular units as certain regions presented challenges with the acute angle in which hairs can grow in these regions. Many of the limitations that were experienced in the early days of the robot have been eliminated as now it is capable of graft extraction using punch diameters similar to traditional hand held manual punch practitioners use, such as .85mm and .9mm punches. Currently the ARTAS robotic system is evolving to the point that it can now make recipient site incisions which are then are filled by follicular units placed by hand.