Evaluation of unmanned airborne vehicles and mobile robotic telesurgery in an extreme environment

Telemed J E Health. 2008 Aug;14(6):539-44. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2007.0087.

Abstract

As unmanned extraction vehicles become a reality in the military theater, opportunities to augment medical operations with telesurgical robotics become more plausible. This project demonstrated an experimental surgical robot using an unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) as a network topology. Because battlefield operations are dynamic and geographically challenging, the installation of wireless networks is not a feasible option at this point. However, to utilize telesurgical robotics to assist in the urgent medical care of wounded soldiers, a robust, high bandwidth, low latency network is requisite. For the first time, a mobile surgical robotic system was deployed to an austere environment and surgeons were able to remotely operate the systems wirelessly using a UAV. Two University of Cincinnati surgeons were able to remotely drive the University of Washington's RAVEN robot's end effectors. The network topology demonstrated a highly portable, quickly deployable, bandwidth-sufficient and low latency wireless network required for battlefield use.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Aircraft*
  • Environment
  • Evaluation Studies as Topic
  • Female
  • Hospitals, Packaged
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Military Medicine / instrumentation*
  • Military Medicine / methods
  • Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / instrumentation
  • Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / methods*
  • Risk Factors
  • Robotics*
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Telemedicine / instrumentation*
  • Telemedicine / methods
  • United States