Teleoperated medical robotic systems allow procedures such as surgeries, treatments, and diagnoses to be conducted across short or long distances while utilizing wired and/or wireless communication networks. This study presents a systematic review of the relevant literature between the years 2004 and 2015, focusing on medical teleoperated robotic systems which have witnessed tremendous growth over the examined period. A thorough insight of telerobotics systems discussing design concepts, enabling technologies (namely robotic manipulation, telecommunications, and vision systems), and potential applications in clinical practice is provided, while existing limitations and future trends are also highlighted. A representative paradigm of the short-distance case is the da Vinci Surgical System which is described in order to highlight relevant issues. The long-distance telerobotics concept is exemplified through a case study on diagnostic ultrasound scanning. Moreover, the present review provides a classification into short- and long-distance telerobotic systems, depending on the distance from which they are operated. Telerobotic systems are further categorized with respect to their application field. For the reviewed systems are also examined their engineering characteristics and the employed robotics technology. The current status of the field, its significance, the potential, as well as the challenges that lie ahead are thoroughly discussed.

This Letter proposes an end‐to‐end mobile tele‐echography platform using a portable robot for remote cardiac ultrasonography. Performance evaluation investigates the capacity of long‐term evolution (LTE) wireless networks to facilitate responsive robot tele‐manipulation and real‐time ultrasound video streaming that qualifies for clinical practice. Within this context, a thorough video coding standards comparison for cardiac ultrasound applications is performed, using a data set of ten ultrasound videos. Both objective and subjective (clinical) video quality assessment demonstrate that H.264/AVC and high efficiency video coding standards can achieve diagnostically‐lossless video quality at bitrates well within the LTE supported data rates. Most importantly, reduced latencies experienced throughout the live tele‐echography sessions allow the medical expert to remotely operate the robot in a responsive manner, using the wirelessly communicated cardiac ultrasound video to reach a diagnosis. Based on preliminary results documented in this Letter, the proposed robotised tele‐echography platform can provide for reliable, remote diagnosis, achieving comparable quality of experience levels with in‐hospital ultrasound examinations.

Medical telerobotic systems provide a framework for performing interventional and diagnostic procedures remotely utilizing communication networks. Over the past decade, various systems have demonstrated the feasibility and the significance of telerobotics, some of which have been already adopted in clinical practice. In this study, we elaborate on the potential and discuss associated challenges focusing on the enabling technologies, namely robotic manipulation, telecommunications, and vision systems. A case study of an end-to-end mobile teleechography software platform using the MELODY robotic system is presented, investigating the capability of commercially available 4G (and beyond) wireless networks to communicate clinically lossless medical video for remote diagnosis purposes. Performance analysis demonstrates that medical video transmission approaching the clinical standards of in-hospital examination while conforming to strict delay requirements is achievable.

Performing a robotized telemedicine act via specific networks brings forth two issues. One is transparency in order to enable the operator, e.g. the medical ultrasound specialist, to safely and accurately perform bilateral tele-operation tasks despite the long time delays inherent to the communication link. To counter these effects, two strategies are combined to improve, at the operator site, the rendering of the interactions between the remote robotic systems with its environment (i.e. the patient), and the control of the robot's orientation. The first approach is the development of a new control architecture based on an internal model providing an anticipated value of the distant environment stiffness; it is complemented with a graphic user interface (GUI) which provides the expert with the real-time relative position of the haptic probe with the robot's end effector for a better tele-operated control. These combined strategies provide the expert with an improved interactive tool for a tele-diagnosis.