Samsung Tests Solo Surgery With Two Humanoid Robot Assistants
A surgeon operated on a goat liver at Samsung Medical Center on September 16, 2026, with two humanoid robots as the only assistants in the room.
One robot held the endoscope and tracked instruments on its own, using visual servoing to follow the midpoint between two tools and keep the camera view steady.
The other handled instrument handoffs, delivering and retrieving tools on the surgeon's command.
The Project Behind the Demo
The system comes from ORchestra, a South Korean consortium led by Samsung Medical Center under the government's ARPA-H-styleproof-of-conceptlonger-term research program.
Partners include Rainbow Robotics, AIDIN Robotics, Seoul National University, Sungkyunkwan University, the National Cancer Center, and Jeonbuk National University Hospital.
The project has received 13.84 billion won, or roughly $10 million, over five years, and is now in its second year at the proof of concept stage.
A competitive review later in 2026 will decide whether it advances to a second phase.
Teaching Robots to Anticipate the Next Move
The team's longer term goal is a robot that predicts what a surgeon needs before being told.
Lead surgeon Jung Yong-gi described training the system on action triplet data, meaning labeled sets that pair the surgical scene, the instrument in use, and the action being performed.
The stated aim is a foundation model that understands surgical scenes in general, rather than one trained on a single surgeon's habits.
Four hospitals are contributing standardized, de-identified surgical data toward that goal.
What the Hospital Reported From Lab Testing
Samsung Medical Center reported a 100 percent gripping rate and a 98.7 percent delivery rate across five instruments in lab testing.
Motion after a voice command started within two seconds, with a target of under one second as the system improves.
The hospital said the robot re-confirms ambiguous or possibly misheard commands before acting.
None of these figures have been independently verified or published in a peer-reviewed study.
Why Hospitals Are the Intended Buyer
Jung framed the project as a staffing fix, noting that regional and smaller hospitals often struggle to hire skilled surgical assistants.
The hospital is tracking what it calls a replacement rate, meaning how much of a human assistant's job a robot can take over.
Commercialization would run through Rainbow Robotics and AIDIN Robotics, with hospitals buying or leasing the systems directly.
The hospital said a first clinical trial is targeted for 2029, with an expected Class III device classification requiring large animal studies, manufacturing certification, and regulatory review.
Where This Sits on the Autonomy Spectrum
This demo mixed teleoperation and AI control in the same case, which puts it in an interesting middle zone on the autonomy spectrum rather than at either end.
For a full breakdown of what separates assisted motion from genuine decision-making, ARPA-H-style proof-of-concept, and longer-term autonomy, see the Surgical Autonomy Registry.
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Source: Korea Biomedical Review
