The first experiment in the world of robotic telesurgery for laparoscopy carried out by means of satellites networks and optical fibres networks on 7th July 1993

This paper describes the significance in human, scientific and technical terms of the first experiment of robotic telesurgery effected between the Telerobotics Laboratory of the Politecnico di Milano and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, in Pasadena California, on 7 July 1993. An Italian surgeon controlled from the USA an Italian robot in the Telerobotics Laboratory in such a way that the robot performed a biopsy, on a model containing the organs of a pig, carrying out an aspiration of organic material and two incisions for the commencement of the surgical operation of laparoscopy. Transmission was effected by means of a double satellite link with three stations-one in Italy, one in New York and one in Pasadena and two geostationary satellites, the first over the Atlantic and the second over the United States. The route length of the signals was 150,000 km in each direction and the two centres are 14,000 km apart