SRT-H: A New Era in Medicine Begins with Autonomous Robot Surgeons

SRT-H, a robot surgeon developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers, can perform operations completely autonomously. It’s expected to arrive in hospitals within 10 years.

Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed the first robot surgeon that can learn and react in real-time, performing operations entirely autonomously. This robot successfully completed a gallbladder removal surgery on pigs with precision and skill comparable to human surgeons.

SRT-H: The Surgical Robot Revolution

Named SRT-H (Surgical Robot Transformer-Hierarchy), the robot received extensive training on operation videos and then performed the surgery alone, without needing mechanical assistance and solely through voice commands. The robot successfully removed the gallbladder in 8 different operations, adapting instantly to challenges encountered during surgery. The pig organs and blood vessels in the tests showed significant variations in appearance and anatomy. Researchers noted that this reflects the diversity encountered in human surgeries.

Azwl Krieger, a medical robotics expert from Johns Hopkins University, described this development as “moving us from robots that can perform specific surgical tasks to robots that truly understand surgical procedures.” He added, “This is a critical step that brings us significantly closer to clinically viable autonomous surgical systems that can operate in the complex and unpredictable reality of real patient care.”

Adapting and Learning

SRT-H’s most remarkable feature is its ability to react instantly to situations encountered during surgery, rather than just following pre-programmed steps. The robot successfully completed 17 different tasks in gallbladder surgery, identifying vessels and ducts, and performing clipping and cutting procedures with great precision.

In the Johns Hopkins experiment, the robots completed the 17-step gallbladder surgery in an average of 5 minutes. During the operation, the robots corrected their errors by changing strategy an average of 6 times without human intervention.

SRT-H also features a machine learning architecture that powers ChatGPT. This allows it to respond to the surgical team’s voice commands and correct its movements by learning instantly. It can even innovate its strategy when it detects unexpected changes in tissues. This means it performs surgery with genuine “understanding,” beyond mere imitation learning.

In Hospitals Within 10 Years

Although SRT-H’s surgical time is currently slightly longer than human surgeons, its results are comparable to professionals. While not yet ready for use on real human patients, the research team anticipates that this technology will become widespread in hospitals within the next 10 years.

The goal for SRT-H in the coming period is to be trained for other types of surgeries and become fully independent. Thus, in the future, robots capable of performing surgery without any human intervention will be able to operate in clinics.

You Might Also Like;

• A “Robotic Eye” That Sees Better Than Humans Has Been Developed
• France Begins Using Humanoid Robots in Nuclear Facilities
• The Rise of Humanoid Robots: Tesla Optimus, Figure 03, and XPeng IRON