AeroVironment Inc. (AV) and a team of military and surgical experts successfully completed the first high-altitude platforms for mobile robotic telesurgery (HAPsMRT) test last month. Telesurgery is a new medical procedure in which a surgeon performs operations on patients hundreds of miles away using a surgical robot, advanced computer technology, and a high-bandwidth telecommunications pathway.

The HAPsMRT model — developed by the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, University of Cincinnati, and University of Washington — uses an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), such as AV's Puma small UAS used in this proof of concept test, as the communications link connecting the surgeon to the advanced robot.

Timothy Broderick, M.D., associate professor of surgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati and director of the Advanced Center for Telemedicine and Surgical Innovation, led the two-day test which took place in part at AV's UAS flight testing location, an undeveloped area in Southern California surrounded by hills and plains that simulates a battlefield or remote environment.

During the first day of the test, a simulated patient and the robot were situated at AV's flight test location. Broderick manned the surgical robot control console and operated on the simulated patient using real-time streaming video fed into the console via AV's Puma UAS, which was flying above the area. The data traveled a round trip distance of nearly three miles.

For the second part of the test, Broderick traveled to the University of Washington to operate the surgical robot at AV's flight test location from behind a surgical robot control console in Seattle, approximately 1,100 miles away, again using AV's Puma to provide the “last tactical mile” communications link. The surgical robot was stationed at AV's remote flight test location, approximately 1.2 miles from AV's UAS facility. Surgery video was successfully streamed over the World Wide Web using a 5 Mb access point carried aloft by Puma, which acted as the communication bridge.

“Our real-time, high-speed communications unmanned aircraft systems eliminate relay lag, saving crucial time for remote surgeons who will someday perform life-saving procedures in the middle of a battlefield,” said John Grabowsky, vice president and general manager of AV's unmanned aircraft systems group. “Mobile robotic surgery could have applications in non-battlefield environments such as remote towns where major surgical centers are located at great distances or where a hospital has been incapacitated due to storms or other causes.”

The Global Observer persistent platform is designed to provide numerous high-value mission capabilities, including communications relay and remote sensing payloads for defense and commercial applications.

For more information, visit www.avinc.com.