# RoboNurse-VLA: Robotic Scrub Nurse System based on Vision-Language-Action Model

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.19590 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19590/

## Key facts

- Cited by 29 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 29 Sep 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotics: A Review Towards Real-World Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.07077/) (2025)
- [Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Models: Concepts, Progress, Applications and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.04769/) (2025)
- [Pure Vision Language Action (VLA) Models: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19012/) (2025)
- [Vision Language Action Models in Robotic Manipulation: A Systematic Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10672/) (2025)
- [A Survey on Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24795/) (2025)
- [Spec-VLA: Speculative Decoding for Vision-Language-Action Models with Relaxed Acceptance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22424/) (2025)
- [MoRE: Unlocking Scalability in Reinforcement Learning for Quadruped Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.08007/) (2025)
- [Eva-VLA: Evaluating Vision-Language-Action Models' Robustness Under Real-World Physical Variations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18953/) (2025)
- [When Alignment Fails: Multimodal Adversarial Attacks on Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16203/) (2025)
- [Vision-Language-Action Safety: Threats, Challenges, Evaluations, and Mechanisms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23775/) (2026)
- [Phantom Menace: Exploring and Enhancing the Robustness of VLA Models Against Physical Sensor Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10008/) (2025)
- [RoboOmni: Proactive Robot Manipulation in Omni-modal Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23763/) (2025)
- [UniAff: A Unified Representation of Affordances for Tool Usage and Articulation with Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.20551/) (2024)
- [ActionFlow: A Pipelined Action Acceleration for Vision Language Models on Edge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20276/) (2025)
- [IA-VLA: Input Augmentation for Vision-Language-Action models in settings with semantically complex tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.24768/) (2025)
- [From Generative Engines to Actionable Simulators: The Imperative of Physical Grounding in World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.15533/) (2026)
- [EndoVLA: Dual-Phase Vision-Language-Action Model for Autonomous Tracking in Endoscopy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15206/) (2025)
- [Information-Theoretic Graph Fusion with Vision-Language-Action Model for Policy Reasoning and Dual Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05342/) (2025)
- [Vision-Language-Policy Model for Dynamic Robot Task Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.19178/) (2025)
- [Towards Next-Generation Healthcare: A Survey of Medical Embodied AI for Perception, Decision-Making, and Action](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.15647/) (2026)
- [INTENTION: Inferring Tendencies of Humanoid Robot Motion Through Interactive Intuition and Grounded VLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04931/) (2025)
- [A Vision-Language-Action Model for Adaptive Ultrasound-Guided Needle Insertion and Needle Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.20347/) (2026)
- [RedVLA: Physical Red Teaming for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22591/) (2026)
- [GIVE: Grounding Human Gestures in Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13435/) (2026)
- [Strategy-Supervised Autonomous Laparoscopic Camera Control via Event-Driven Graph Mining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.20500/) (2026)
- [Membership Inference Attacks on Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07088/) (2026)
- [Imitation Learning for Robot Assistance in Open Surgery: A Multi-Policy Evaluation on Suture Following](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28736/) (2026)
- [US-VLA: An Ultrasound Vision-Language-Action Model for Embodied Abdomina](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.16074/) (2026)
- [3DWay: Generalizing Robot Manipulation via 3D Consistent Waypoints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.08224/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In modern healthcare, the demand for autonomous robotic assistants has grown significantly, particularly in the operating room, where surgical tasks require precision and reliability. Robotic scrub nurses have emerged as a promising solution to improve efficiency and reduce human error during surgery. However, challenges remain in terms of accurately grasping and handing over surgical instruments, especially when dealing with complex or difficult objects in dynamic environments. In this work, we introduce a novel robotic scrub nurse system, RoboNurse-VLA, built on a Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model by integrating the Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM 2) and the Llama 2 language model. The proposed RoboNurse-VLA system enables highly precise grasping and handover of surgical instruments in real-time based on voice commands from the surgeon. Leveraging state-of-the-art vision and language models, the system can address key challenges for object detection, pose optimization, and the handling of complex and difficult-to-grasp instruments. Through extensive evaluations, RoboNurse-VLA demonstrates superior performance compared to existing models, achieving high success rates in surgical instrument handovers, even with unseen tools and challenging items. This work presents a significant step forward in autonomous surgical assistance, showcasing the potential of integrating VLA models for real-world medical applications. More details can be found at https://robonurse-vla.github.io.