Overview

• The SRT-H system autonomously performed eight cholecystectomies on pig cadavers with 100% success after training on annotated surgery videos.
• The robot executed all 17 surgical steps in just over five minutes per operation, making an average of six self-corrections without human intervention.
• Built on neural networks akin to ChatGPT, SRT-H combines computer vision and language-conditioned imitation learning to adapt to anatomical variations and respond to voice instructions.
• Researchers will begin live-animal trials to test the robot in bleeding and breathing conditions before advancing to human pilot studies.
• Experts caution that unpredictable patient movement, bleeding and stringent regulatory and liability requirements must be addressed to ensure safe clinical deployment.