Humanoid robots controlled by surgeons did world-first operation on live pigs

由外科医生操控的人形机器人完成了全球首例活体猪手术

Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment—but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots’ movements in a new example of human-robot teamups. 在一项史无前例的医学实验中，人形机器人成功为活体动物进行了胆囊切除手术。但这并非是因为机器人具备了取代人类医生的自主能力，而是由经验丰富的外科医生远程操控机器人的动作，这展示了人机协作的新范例。

The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots. 在发表于《自然》杂志的一项临床前试验中，这些远程操控的人形机器人完成了两例活体猪胆囊切除微创手术。如果该方法最终被证明可应用于人类患者，外科医生将能够利用此类人形机器人，在那些缺乏资源安装昂贵专用手术机器人的小型医院和诊所中，远程进行机器人辅助手术。

“It’s a fraction of the cost and it takes a fraction of the space in an operating room,” said Shanglei Liu, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in an interview with UC San Diego Today. “So it’s easy to deploy, anywhere from rural areas, to the battlefield, and even to space.” “它的成本仅为专用手术机器人的一小部分，占用的手术室空间也更小，”加州大学圣地亚哥分校医学院外科助理教授刘尚雷（Shanglei Liu，音译）在接受《今日加州大学圣地亚哥分校》采访时表示，“因此它易于部署，无论是农村地区、战场，甚至是太空。”

The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. 该实验使用了由中国领先的机器人公司宇树科技（Unitree）制造的 Unitree G1 人形机器人。最基础的 G1 型号（其手部功能基本不可用）起售价为 13,500 美元，运费在 300 至 1,200 美元之间；而增加灵巧机械手等关键升级配置，则很容易使成本超过 67,000 美元。

But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5-feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas. 但这些中国制造的人形机器人仍然比 Intuitive Surgical 公司的“达芬奇”手术系统等专用手术机器人便宜得多，后者的价格从 50 万美元到数百万美元不等。专用手术机器人的重量可达 1,800 磅（约 816 公斤），在手术室中占用的空间也大得多。相比之下，Unitree 人形机器人身高 5 英尺（约 1.5 米），重量仅 60 磅（约 27 公斤），可能更适合偏远地区的小型临床环境。

Of course, Intuitive’s da Vinci system has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration and other medical regulatory agencies and has been tested in multiple clinical trials for various surgical operations. The humanoid robots teleoperated by surgeons are still very much in the experimental phase, even if they have successfully performed surgeries on live animals in this preclinical study. 当然，Intuitive 公司的“达芬奇”系统已获得美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）及其他医疗监管机构的批准，并已在多项临床试验中用于各种外科手术。尽管这些人形机器人在本次临床前研究中成功完成了活体动物手术，但由外科医生远程操控的人形机器人仍处于实验阶段。

The challenges of getting “Surgie” ready

让“Surgie”准备就绪的挑战

The UC San Diego researchers had to build physical adapters to allow the humanoid robots, nicknamed “Surgie,” to hold surgical tools. They also created software to allow intuitive human hand motions to translate smoothly into controlling the surgical tools attached to the robots’ wrists. A surgeon operating a control console with a PC provided a stereo headset display for surgeons to see what they were doing, along with a foot pedal to engage or disengage surgeon hand movements from the surgical tools’ movements. 加州大学圣地亚哥分校的研究人员必须制造物理适配器，使这些被昵称为“Surgie”的人形机器人能够握住手术工具。他们还开发了软件，将人类直观的手部动作平滑地转化为对机器人手腕上手术工具的控制。外科医生通过 PC 控制台进行操作，并佩戴立体声耳机显示器以观察手术过程，同时使用脚踏板来连接或断开医生手部动作与手术工具动作之间的联动。

The first surgery on a live pig included a human surgeon standing alongside the humanoid robot as an assistant, while the second operation featured two teleoperated robots working together. But the experiment also revealed current limitations in using humanoid robots for teleoperated surgery. The team had to pause for several minutes at a time during the surgery to recalibrate the robots for accuracy or to physically move the robot body or arm into the proper position relative to the medical instruments. 第一例活体猪手术由一名人类外科医生站在人形机器人旁边作为助手，而第二例手术则由两台远程操控的机器人协同完成。但实验也揭示了目前使用人形机器人进行远程手术的局限性。研究团队在手术过程中不得不多次暂停，每次持续数分钟，以便重新校准机器人以确保精度，或者手动将机器人身体或手臂移动到相对于医疗器械的正确位置。

That meant the surgery took “much longer than when performed with existing specialized surgical systems,” according to UC San Diego Today. The compact body of the Unitree G1 robot with an arm span of just 450 millimeters—compared to a range of 1.6 to 1.8 meters for an adult human—also constrained the reach for remote operators. Other constraints in the robots’ range of motion combined with the need for frequent recalibration during operations to increase the cognitive and operational workloads for the surgical team, which is not ideal. 据《今日加州大学圣地亚哥分校》报道，这意味着手术时间“比使用现有专用手术系统进行手术的时间要长得多”。Unitree G1 机器人紧凑的机身（臂展仅 450 毫米，而成年人臂展为 1.6 至 1.8 米）也限制了远程操作员的触及范围。机器人运动范围的其他限制，加上手术过程中频繁校准的需求，增加了手术团队的认知和操作负担，这并不理想。

Any delay between the human operator’s controlling hand motions and the robot’s follow-on motions could also be important for future clinical scenarios involving remote-controlled surgeries. Current teleoperated humanoid robot systems usually have latencies in the hundreds of milliseconds, whereas previous studies suggest surgical robots should ideally have a latency below 150 milliseconds, the researchers wrote in their paper. Both new surgery residents and experienced surgeons also generally performed faster on practice tasks when using the controls of da Vinci Research Kit hardware—a standard for telerobotic surgery—compared to controlling the humanoid robots. 人类操作员的控制手势与机器人后续动作之间的任何延迟，对于未来涉及远程手术的临床场景也至关重要。研究人员在论文中写道，目前远程操控人形机器人系统的延迟通常在数百毫秒，而以往研究表明，手术机器人的延迟理想情况下应低于 150 毫秒。此外，无论是新入职的外科住院医师还是经验丰富的外科医生，在使用“达芬奇研究套件”（远程机器人手术的标准硬件）进行练习任务时，其操作速度通常都比操控人形机器人时更快。

Waiting for autonomous robots

等待自主机器人

Still, the research team is continuing to improve the teleoperated humanoid robot system while exploring future options. Michael Yip, a professor of electrical and computing engineering at the University of California San Diego, described the goal of creating an “autonomous surgical assistant” that could work alongside human surgeons while doing general tasks, like fetching tools or even cleaning up operating rooms. 尽管如此，研究团队仍在继续改进远程操控人形机器人系统，同时探索未来的选择。加州大学圣地亚哥分校电气与计算机工程教授 Michael Yip 描述了创建一个“自主手术助手”的目标，它可以与人类外科医生并肩工作，同时执行常规任务，例如取工具甚至清理手术室。

“Remotely operated and autonomous humanoid robots have real potential for amplifying access to critical surgeries to which patients would otherwise not have access,” Yip told UC San Diego Today. “This can help address the healthcare crisis not only in the United States, but also worldwide.” “远程操控和自主人形机器人确实有潜力扩大关键手术的覆盖范围，让原本无法获得此类手术的患者受益，”Yip 对《今日加州大学圣地亚哥分校》表示，“这不仅有助于解决美国的医疗危机，也能帮助解决全球范围内的医疗问题。”

However, many leading robotics researchers agree that general-purpose robots capable of doing their work autonomously without human intervention are still a long way off—especially if they are supposed to function safely around humans. 然而，许多领先的机器人研究人员一致认为，能够无需人类干预而自主工作的通用机器人距离实现还有很长的路要走——特别是如果它们需要在人类周围安全地工作的话。