A remote surgery experiment between Japan-Korea using the minimally invasive surgical system

Several robotic surgical systems have been developed for MIS (minimally invasive surgery) including commercialized products such as da Vinci and ZEUS. We have developed a minimally invasive surgical system, which have carried out remote surgery experiments for five times at the writing time. In this paper, a remote surgery experiment, which was conducted between Japan and Korea by using the developed minimally invasive surgical system is described. Research & Development (R & D) Internet testbet, APII (Asia-Pacific Information Infrastructure), which consists of an optical submarine cable network KJCN (Korea-Japan Cable Network), was used. In the experiment, a laparoscopic cholecystectomy was successfully carried out on a pig. The network time-delays of control signal and images were 6.5 msec and 435.5 msec respectively. A comparison of remote surgery experiments using ISDN and the Internet was studied