![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783768165_241_0x0.jpg\")
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Two Unitree G1 robots perform live surgery in a new study by the University of California, San Diego.<\/p>\n
ARClab<\/p>\n
In a global first, two humanoid robots have performed surgery on a live patient. The robots performed laparoscopic cholecystectomies, or gallbladder removals: retracting tissue, dissecting, clipping and lifting the gallbladder out of the liver bed. The two big caveats: the patient was a pig and the robots were fully teleoperated by trained human surgeons. Another caveat: as you can see in the image above, the robots were tethered so they could not accidentally fall and injure their porcine patient.<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s an impressive accomplishment and an important milestone.<\/p>\n
This was essentially an experiment performed by a team from the University of California, San Diego. The goal: understand whether humanoid robots are useful for extending medical care in the physical absence of human doctors. The answer, ultimately, is not yet \u2026 but probably soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cHumanoid form factors offer unique potential, particularly for assisting with surgical tasks,\u201d the team reported<\/a> in its Github overview. \u201cTraditionally, robotic systems for surgery are purpose-built platforms such as Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci Surgical System, and it remains unclear how close current humanoid systems are to meeting the precision, control, and safety requirements of minimally invasive surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n What they learned is genuinely significant: a humanoid robot completed a real surgical procedure on living tissue. That said, humans were still deeply involved, and the team\u2019s paper in Nature states<\/a> that there are still \u201ckey technical challenges that must be addressed before clinical deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n The team from UC San Diego\u2019s school of medicine and ARClab, an advanced robotics lab at the university, did not custom-build a robot for this job. Rather, they used two off-the-shelf Unitree G1s. These are small, cheap robots: four to five feet tall, only about 70 pounds and purchasable for under $20,000, although it\u2019s likely these specific robots had Unitree\u2019s three-fingered “Dex3” dexterous hands that come with a thumb, index and middle finger, each with multiple actuated joints. They also have extra wrist and waist articulation, making this version capable of holding and manipulating tools. It also ships with 3D LiDAR and a depth camera: very useful for surgery tasks.<\/p>\n