Humanoid robots remove pig gallbladders in teleoperated surgery trial

Two minimally invasive gallbladder removals on live pigs were performed using teleoperated humanoid robots, according to results published in Nature and reported by Ars Technica. The system used two Unitree humanoid robots adapted to hold surgical tools, with skilled surgeons controlling them remotely rather than letting the machines operate autonomously. Researchers at the University of California San Diego described the work as a preclinical demonstration, not a procedure ready for human patients.

The experiment is a direct challenge to the assumption that surgical robotics must come as large, dedicated platforms that only major hospitals can afford and staff. Ars Technica notes that Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci system has FDA clearance and is widely used, but it is also heavy, space-hungry, and priced far above what small clinics can justify. The UC San Diego team argues that a humanoid base could be cheaper and easier to deploy, especially if the same body can be repurposed for other tasks instead of living permanently in an operating theatre.

Cost and footprint, however, are only part of the story. The researchers had to build physical adapters so the robots’ wrists could manipulate surgical instruments, and they developed software to translate a surgeon’s hand motions into tool movements. During the pig operations, the team reportedly paused for several minutes at a time to recalibrate for accuracy or to reposition robot bodies or arms. The procedures took much longer than conventional robotic surgery, and the compact humanoid form factor imposed awkward constraints: the Unitree robot’s reach is limited compared with an adult human’s, increasing the operational workload on the surgeons and assistants.

That trade-off—smaller and cheaper hardware in exchange for more calibration, more oversight, and slower execution—maps onto the likely first markets. Remote surgery is often sold as a way to bring specialist care to rural hospitals, field medicine, or other settings where the alternative is no surgeon at all. But those same settings also lack the staff depth to babysit experimental equipment, and they cannot easily absorb long procedure times that tie up rooms and clinicians. A platform that looks inexpensive on a purchase order can become costly if it demands frequent resets, bespoke tooling, and a highly trained team to keep it on track.

The paper’s most concrete result remains the simplest: the robots did remove gallbladders from live pigs, and the surgeons did it from a control console rather than at the table. In the reported trials, the system still needed pauses to be made accurate enough to continue.