System-level evaluation of 5G standalone communication infrastructure for robotic telesurgery

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Telecommunications Engineering
• Medical Technology

Background:

• Telesurgery enables remote surgical procedures, aiming to reduce access disparities.
• Real-time telesurgery demands ultra-low latency, minimal jitter, and stable video.
• Fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks offer scalable, infrastructure-independent communication for telesurgery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of 5G networks for telesurgery.
• To compare different 5G configurations (NSA, SA Sub6, NR-DC) against 4G LTE.
• To assess system performance under simulated network congestion.

Main Methods:

• Feasibility study using the hinotori™ Surgical Robot System.
• Simulated 800-km round trip via a Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) server.
• Tested 4G LTE, 5G NSA, and 5G SA (Sub6, NR-DC) network configurations.
• Evaluated latency, video continuity, buffer stability, and uplink throughput.
• Conducted stress tests simulating public network congestion.

Main Results:

• 5G SA configurations achieved sub-120 ms latency with stable video.
• 5G SA Sub6 offered smoother buffering and more predictable control than NR-DC.
• 4G LTE and 5G NSA (high-bitrate) experienced high latency and video freezes.
• 5G SA Sub6 maintained performance up to 300 Mbps background traffic during congestion.
• Performance degraded significantly beyond 400 Mbps background traffic.

Conclusions:

• Sub6-based 5G SA demonstrates technical feasibility for telesurgery under controlled conditions.
• Achieved latency nearing the clinically desirable <100 ms threshold.
• Network congestion impacts 5G SA performance, highlighting susceptibility.
• Real-world validation and advanced traffic management are crucial for safe clinical deployment.