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The Network Revolution Needed For Remote Surgery (thestack.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the from-the-comfort-of-your-own-home dept.

An anonymous reader writes: IEEE researchers are proposing new standards for haptic codecs over software-defined 5G networks in order to achieve the ambitious 1ms latency and reliability required for the 'tactile internet'. It's a trivial consideration when hugging chickens over a network, more serious for applications of telesurgery, and a proposed leap in network quality that seems likely to yield benefits for general data streams as well.

15 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Do Not Want by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    >> more serious for applications of telesurgery

    Do not want. If I'm under the knife, I'd like a doctor present in the room, not some dude with a "medical degree" dialing in from the other side of the world while moonlighting from his IT helpdesk job.

    1. Re:Do Not Want by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 2

      Telemedicine is for people who would otherwise lack access to care.

      --

      Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

    2. Re: Do Not Want by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      The interesting question is whether allowing surgeons to telecommute makes you more or less likely to be chopped open by some hack.
      On the minus side, we've certainly all experienced the fact that when the call center gets off shored it is because nobody gives a damn and a cheaper labor force can do a bad job for less. On the other hand, there's the old quip about 'what do you call a med school grad in the bottom ten percent of his class? Doctor.' and the fact that only having access to on-site talent means that you are substantially at the mercy of the quality of whatever medical experts happen to be where you need treatment, which varies enormously between wealthy medical hubs and low density and/or really poor backwaters.
      Are you better off with whatever surgeon lives within commuting distance, because they can't hire any cheap 'n cheerful bottom feeder within your light cone? Or are you better off with any surgeon in your light cone; because they aren't limited to recruiting only the second-stringers willing to settle for the lousy location/lower salary/inferior institutional prestige?

    3. Re: Do Not Want by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      The interesting question is whether allowing surgeons to telecommute makes you more or less likely to be chopped open by some hack.

      Now that we are planning on making surgery part of the Internet of Things, it looks like the transition is just about complete. Hopefully the process will be 100 percent secure.

      A side issue is that those really poor backwaters you refer to will be hard pressed to afford the machinery, and of course the personnel to run it calibrate it, sterilize it, and keep it in working order.

      And I'm really curious about just what this is supposed to free up. If I might, I can relay the experience I had just a few weeks ago. My better half had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and a few other things related to a very old surgery on he shoulder.

      We did get a renowned expert to do the work. He is based in a very large medical center. So on his day for surgery, which is Fridays, he travels the mile to the hospital, ( it is a huge complex) spends the entire day doing surgeries, and it is a long and busy day.

      So I'm trying to figure out how exactly this is supposed to be improved. The actual surgery was relatively short. She had consults and spent a lot of time with the surgeon as he personally examined and manipulated her shoulder and interpreted the x-rays and MRI and sonograms. Then he held a consult with her local doctor. This is not incidental stuff - this is an integral part of what makes him so highly regarded.

      So the concept that I think people have in their heads is of some hyper-surgeon who spends an entire day doing only surgery, and does only that for his entire workweek.

      I suppose this could do world class surgery if you hired a world class surgeon to do the surgery remotely, and another world class one to examine the patient and do the manipulations needed, and to do the consulting. I do doubt however that it will ever be the assembly line surgeries many seem to think will happen, in no small part because the whole process is very painstaking, and I suspect the surgery portion can be exhausting.

      And of course, now the internet of things aspect means another layer of issues on top of everything else.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    4. Re:Do Not Want by ottothecow · · Score: 2
      Hell, I just try to remotely control my computer from a distance and it will suck ass at random moments in time.

      Some days I can load up a citrix desktop from across the country, RDP to a machine back in my state from that citrix session, and use it so well I almost forget I am remote (although for some reason, Chrome is barely functional over this connection...lags like hell, even if it is just in the background and not the active window ...IE works fine). Yes, I know a Remote Desktop Gateway Server would save me the shitty citrix layer that I use for absolutely nothing besides the RDP client...but I guess IT doesn't like it.

      And then other days, somewhere in the middle, something chokes and even a bare citrix session is barely usable

      --
      Bottles.
    5. Re:Do Not Want by leonardluen · · Score: 2

      getting 1ms latency to mars to allow this would be quite an amazing feat and would rewrite our knowledge of physics.

  2. 1 ms ping time by wendyo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1 ms of ping time at the speed of light only gives you at best 150 km.

    1. Re:1 ms ping time by JoeMerchant · · Score: 4, Informative

      the speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s

      Or, 299.792458 km / ms

      Well done, sir - round trip time of 1ms happens at 93.14 miles, or less in slower medium (~60 miles in glass). For example, for visible light the refractive index of glass is typically around 1.5, meaning that light in glass travels at c / 1.5 200000 km/s; the refractive index of air for visible light is about 1.0003, so the speed of light in air is about 299700 km/s (about 90 km/s slower than c). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  3. What is up with this Internet surgery fascination? by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

    When I'm getting a surgery, I don't want it interrupted because a Comcast router craps out or a neighbor starts torrenting 4k videos.

    I mean, I can understand the need if there were only a few surgeons in the world, but I live in a city and I look around and there's lots of surgeons. Also, in small number of cases where a rare specialty surgeon is needed, airplane tickets are cheaper than telerobotic equipment.

  4. Fundamental Limit by namgge · · Score: 2

    Hmm. If a 1ms latency is what's needed, the speed of light through the network limits the separation of the patient and surgeon to about 100 miles or so.

    If a truck filled with tapes beats the bandwidth of the fastest network, I guess an ambulance with the patient in it is the metric that needs to be to beaten here.

  5. Is it even possible? by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    Ok, one question, probably stupid.

    Is 1ms latency even physically possible if the 2 nodes are on opposite sides of the world?

    Or are they talking about "within the same city" kind of network?

    Also... 5G? Over-the-air? Wireless is not my first thought for medium when I think of low latency...

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:Is it even possible? by jon3k · · Score: 2

      Speed of light is 186 miles per millisecond, so no, not possible. Even if you could transmit it in a perfectly straight line in a vacuum you couldn't get it around the world in 1ms.

      By the way, Google will do the conversion for you automatically, just search for "speed of light in miles per millisecond" or something along those lines.

  6. Use a leased line. by tlambert · · Score: 2

    Use a leased line.

    Problem solved.

    Your max is 100 miles anyway.

  7. "Telesurgery" and "5G networks" by dohzer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Telesurgery" and "5G networks" should never be mentioned in the same story.

  8. You're doing it wrong... by David_Hart · · Score: 2

    Yes, remote surgery would be nice but obviously has limitations.

    My thought is that automated surgery would be better...

    Perhaps remote surgery is a necessary stepping stone needed for machine learning to get us to automated surgery.