A four-day Telesurgery Trial, in which the WIDE Project is involved in research together with Fujita Health University (FHU), National University of Singapore (NUS), and Medicaroid Corporation, was conducted from October 9 to 12, 2023. This was Japan’s first telesurgery trial conducted between Singapore and Japan, distanced more than 5,000km. Although telesurgery is not currently allowed as a medical procedure according to the "Telesurgery Guidelines'' of the Japan Surgical Society, this demonstration impressed that "education, research, and medical care can work together beyond the conventional boundaries” (WIDE Project Founder Jun Murai).

The surgical robot used in this trial, hinotoriTM Surgical Robot System, was developed by Medicaroid Corporation, a joint venture between Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a leading industrial robotics company, and Sysmex, which has an extensive network in the medical field.

The network connecting FHU and the NUS used in this trial was established through the cooperation of the following research and education networks (RENs) under the framework of domestic collaboration, CINJI (Coalition of Interoperable Networks for Japan and International), and international collaboration, APOnet (Asia Pacific Oceania Network).

• - SINET (Tokyo - Singapore) - an information and communication network built and operated by the National Institute of Informatics (NII)
• - JGN (Tokyo - Singapore via Hong Kong) - a high speed R&D network testbed built and operated by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)
• - ARENA-PAC (Tokyo - Singapore via Guam) - a backbone network for research and education operated by WIDE Project
• - SingAREN - (Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network)

Through the cooperation of these multiple networks, we secured three different international redundant routes between the two sites and created a highly robust telesurgery environment. In addition, physicians evaluated each route with different delays to confirm the applicability of such a research and education network in the medical field.

The WIDE Project and Keio University's Cyber Civilization Research Center (CCRC) played a central role in coordinating the construction of the network between FHU and NUS with the partner institutions listed above.

NUS media release:
https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMMEDIATE-RELEASE-Media-Release_Remote-Telesurgery-Trial.pdf

FHU media release:
https://www.fujita-hu.ac.jp/news/j93sdv000000n24h.html (in Japanese)