The researchers said a major goal of the underwater experiment is to show that the robot can be dismantled, transported and set up by non-engineers in the zero gravity environment.

The co-director of the BioRobotics Lab, Associate Professor Jacob Rosen, said they needed the cooperation of doctors and every kind of engineer and computer scientist to make the robot work.

"We've all had to learn how to go into the different realms," Rosen said.

Sinanan said learning to use the robot was similar to learning a complex new surgical instrument, and comparable to the training for doing minimally invasive laproscopic surgery.

In addition to its applications on the battlefield, Sinanan expected the robot would be developed for surgery that requires very precise work in small spaces, such as coronary bypass operations or prostate surgery.

He said he was confident that robots would become standard in the operating room, but "it's going to be a slow evolution."

NASA is paying for the underwater experiment, scheduled for May 7-18, but the rest of the project is being paid for by the Defense Department. Two graduate students are scheduled to travel to Florida with Raven this Friday.

The robot was tested last summer in California's Simi Valley, using an unmanned aircraft with a wireless transmitter for communications.

Another robot being developed by SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., will be tested in the underwater lab after the University of Washington project is tested. Neither robot has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use on humans, Hannaford said.

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