Recently, a paper on surgical procedures using the humanoid robot "Unitree G1" from China's Unitree Robotics was published in the online edition of the international scientific journal Nature. Chinese media outlets such as Jiemian News reported. According to reports, in this study, "Unitree G1" was brought into the operating room, equipped with general laparoscopic surgical instruments used by human doctors, and remotely controlled to perform standard laparoscopic cholecystectomy on two live pigs. This is reported to be the world's first case of a humanoid robot completing the process of a standard minimally invasive surgery (MIS) on a living organism. The lead author of this paper is Liang Zekai, who graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China in 2023. Liang obtained his master's degree from the University of California, San Diego in the U.S. in 2025. He is currently conducting doctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Michael C. Yip at the same university. Furthermore, these surgeries were successfully performed through the cooperation of the university's engineering research team and surgical team, using two "Unitree G1" robots. In one of the two cases, one robot collaborated with a surgeon, while in the other, two robots performed the surgery under complete remote control.

Because humanoid robots do not take up much space and are mobile, their use is expected, particularly in remote areas with limited medical resources. On the other hand, there are still many challenges in performing surgery by remotely controlling robots. For example, because the robot needed to be adjusted multiple times during surgery, it reportedly took longer compared to using existing surgical systems. (Translated and edited by Noya)

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