With the help of a game controller, researchers in Switzerland successfully used a magnetically steered endoscope on a living pig 9,300 kilometres (5,780 miles) away in Hong Kong to perform a biopsy on its stomach wall. Professor Bradley Nelson, the head of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, said the breakthrough meant telesurgeries in the future could be performed in remote regions such as developing countries where expertise was often in short supply. “We’re able to, over thousands and thousands of kilometres, have very precise control of an endoscope, a new type of endoscope, and to do a scan of a patient’s stomach,” he added.
“Being able to treat more patients around the world – I think is the long-term vision. “What we’re going to be able to see is we’re going to be able to deliver the quality of healthcare we have here in Hong Kong to the rest of the world.” He added that human trials were expected to be carried out in two years.
The endoscopy procedure, carried out in May, involved two operators on different sides of the world – a doctor at CUHK’s Multi-scale Medical Robotics Center in Hong Kong’s Science Park and an expert in Zurich. The Zurich expert handled the teleoperated system with a control console and a robotic agent translated commands into actions in Hong Kong. The communication between the control console and robotic system was set up by a computer communication protocol called WebSocket, which allows rea.