Surgeons Remotely Steer Humanoid Robots in First-of-Its-Kind Animal Surgery

In a medical first, humanoid robots performed gallbladder removal surgery on live pigs, but these weren't autonomous machines acting alone. Surgeons controlled every move from a distance, marking a new milestone in human-robot collaboration. The two minimally invasive procedures were part of a preclinical trial published in Nature, and the results could eventually reshape how remote surgery is delivered.

The idea is straightforward: put a nimble, affordable humanoid robot in a small rural clinic or even a battlefield tent, and let a specialist hundreds of miles away operate it in real time. "It's a fraction of the cost and takes a fraction of the space in an operating room," said Dr. Shanglei Liu, assistant professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "So it's easy to deploy anywhere, rural areas, the battlefield, even space."

The robot used in the experiment was a Unitree G1, a Chinese-made humanoid that stands five feet tall and weighs just 60 pounds. The base model starts at $13,500, though adding dexterous hands pushes the price above $67,000. Compare that to specialized surgical systems like the da Vinci, which can cost anywhere from half a million to several million dollars and weigh 1,800 pounds. For smaller hospitals and remote clinics, the lighter, cheaper humanoid could be a game changer.