Construction of redundant communications to enhance safety against communication interruptions during robotic remote surgery

Abstract

It is important to ensure the redundancy of communication during remote surgery. The purpose of this study is to construct a communication system that does not affect the operation in the event of a communication failure during telesurgery. The hospitals were connected by two commercial lines, a main line and a backup line, with redundant encoder interfaces. The fiber optic network was constructed using both guaranteed and best-effort lines. The surgical robot used was from Riverfield Inc. During the observation, a random shutdown and restoration process of either line was conducted repeatedly. First, the effects of communication interruption were investigated. Next, we performed a surgical task using an artificial organ model. Finally, 12 experienced surgeons performed operations on actual pigs. Most of the surgeons did not feel the effects of the line interruption and restoration on still and moving images, in artificial organ tasks, and in pig surgery. During all 16 surgeries, a total of 175-line switches were performed, and 15 abnormalities were detected by the surgeons. However, there were no abnormalities that coincided with the line switching. It was possible to construct a system in which communication interruptions would not affect the surgery.