Samsung Medical Center Unveils Humanoid Surgical Assistant Robot in First Public Demonstration

Samsung Medical Center (SMC) held a public demonstration of its humanoid surgical assistant robot on September 16.

In 2025, SMC was selected as the lead institution for the Korean ARPA-H Project, a large-scale national research initiative. Under this program, the hospital has been carrying out a project titled "Development of a Humanoid-Type Physical AI–Based Surgical Assistant Robot for an Efficient Surgical Environment."

SMC is developing the robot through a consortium called "ORchestra," which includes Rainbow Robotics, AIDIN ROBOTICS, Haehaeho, the Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences & Technology (SAIHST), Seoul National University, the National Cancer Center, and Jeonbuk National University Hospital.

※ ORchestra: Operating Room Collaborative Humanoid: An Embedded System as a Trustworthy Robotic AI

The project is now in a validation phase. In a simulated surgical environment, the team is testing the robot's ability to pass and retrieve instruments, operate an endoscope, retract tissue, understand voice commands, and stop and recover safely. To reach commercialization, the robot will go through repeated performance testing, simulated-environment and preclinical studies, usability evaluations by medical staff, establishment of a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) quality system, clinical trials, and regulatory approval as a medical device.

At the event, SMC unveiled to the public for the first time the humanoid surgical assistant robot it has developed over the past year. The demonstration showed, step by step, how the robot can share roles with medical staff, from routine support tasks in the operating room to precise surgical maneuvers in minimally invasive surgery.

"Attendees saw a humanoid surgical assistant robot that follows the commands and controls of medical staff, who retain decision-making authority and control throughout the entire surgical process," said Professor Yong Gi Jung of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. "They were able to see firsthand how successfully the robot can assist humans during surgery."

In the first demonstration, SMC showed the humanoid robot holding surgical instruments itself. The robot performed a sequence of precise surgical steps on biological tissue: incision, dissection, and suturing. "The robot is not yet at the stage where it assesses a patient's condition on its own and operates autonomously," Professor Jung explained. "Rather, skilled medical staff control the robot's two arms and surgical instruments in real time through a control device."

The robot mirrors the movements of the operating surgeon, who watches a monitor while performing the motions. The setup recalls the science fiction film Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman, in which a robot copies a human's movements exactly.

"The humanoid surgical assistant robot converts the movements of a person's hands and arms into the robot's coordinate system and executes them in the operating room," Professor Jung said. "This allowed attendees to see precise surgery in which the surgeon's control inputs are expressed in small, fine-grained motion units."

Professor Namkee Oh, Department of Transplant Surgery

The second demonstration showed the humanoid robots assisting the operating surgeon by taking over tasks traditionally handled by people, such as cycling surgical instruments, maintaining the endoscopic view, and retracting tissue. As in an actual operation, the robots carried out these tasks continuously.

Notably, SMC presented a demonstration of two robots collaborating with a human surgeon to perform an operation. Robot No. 1 took on the role of a scrub nurse. It understood the surgeon's spoken requests, identified the requested instrument, and handed it over after adjusting the orientation of the handle and the point of delivery so the surgeon could grasp it safely. Once an instrument was no longer needed, the robot took it back, returned it to its designated place, and updated the status of available instruments and the next request.

"The key is not simply handing over an instrument once and stopping there," Professor Jung explained. "It's about completing the full instrument cycle—request, delivery, use, retrieval, and organization—just as a human would during an actual operation."

Robot No. 2 served as both an assistant surgeon and a nurse. With its left hand, it held a laparoscope and adjusted the view to keep the surgical site centered on the screen. With its right hand, it used surgical graspers to retract tissue in a specified direction according to the surgeon's instructions.

"Because a single humanoid robot handles both the endoscopic view and tissue retraction, it can coordinate the motion that keeps the surgical site visible with the motion that secures the necessary working space," Professor Jung said.

The event concluded with a hands-on session in a simulated open-surgery environment, where attendees operated the humanoid surgical assistant robot themselves.

Professor Kyuhwan Jung / Professor Yong Gi Jung / Professor Namkee Oh

Research on bringing humanoid surgical assistant robots into the operating room remains at an early stage worldwide, focused on initial validation and proof of concept. Korea has also entered this early race and is working to help shape the emerging market.

Development of humanoid robots for the operating room is generally moving in two directions. One focuses on transporting supplies and handling preparation tasks before and after surgery. The other focuses on robots that take part in surgery and handle surgical instruments. Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, drew attention at COMPUTEX in Taiwan this year when it introduced Nurabot, a robot that can move through hospital wards delivering medications and supplies and can also perform scrub nurse duties.

Humanoid robots that perform surgery under human control are also moving closer to commercialization. In July, researchers at the University of California San Diego published a study in Nature showing that a humanoid surgical robot, teleoperated by a human, used standard laparoscopic instruments to perform surgery in a porcine model.

"This means humanoid surgical assistant robots can use existing operating rooms and surgical instruments designed for humans, without the need to build separate operating rooms for them," Professor Jung explained. "Once commercialized, they can be rapidly deployed in operating rooms without any changes to the existing environment."

SMC said that in this demonstration, rather than focusing on individual motions, it emphasized connecting the workflow, so the robots act like people who understand the entire surgical process.

While surgical robots being developed in other countries are largely aimed at performing specific tasks as well as or better than humans, SMC said its approach stands apart: building an operating room system in which multiple humanoid robots share the surgical context and work together with people as a single team.

"If humanoid surgical assistant robots can help people in environments where surgery is difficult for humans, and in areas involving repetitive, physically demanding work, we can create a surgical environment that is more favorable for patients," Professor Jung said. "We expect the robots to help hospitals run surgery more reliably with limited medical staff, and to fill staffing gaps in night-time, emergency, and essential-care settings, where skilled surgical assistants are hard to secure."

SMC's humanoid surgical assistant robot development project is part of the 2025 Korean ARPA-H Project, supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the K-Health Future Promotion Division of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI). The project is a competitive program running 54 months, from July 2025 to December 2029, with total government R&D funding of KRW 13.835 billion. Teams that pass the first-phase competitive evaluation at the end of 2026 will advance to the second phase.