MEMS Seminar: Recent Advances in Intelligent Robots and Complementary Situational Awareness in Surgery: Modeling, Control and Nascent Applications

Emerging surgical paradigms such as natural orifice surgery and minimally invasive surgery in deep surgical sites present new challenges to surgeons and engineers. These new challenges stem from the limitations of surgeon's sensing, perception and incomplete situational awareness. To overcome these challenges, a new class of intelligent surgical robots has been developed at the speaker's lab. These robots range from continuum robots with force sensing and contact detection capabilities to elastomeric electrode arrays capable of traversing anatomical passageways in the inner ear. A new concept of complementary situational awareness is put forward and illustrated within the context of several surgical scenarios. The talk will describe new design, modeling and control approaches for intelligent surgical robots including parallel and continuum architectures. Examples of recent surgical applications benefiting from the above mentioned concepts will be presented. These examples will include minimally invasive surgery of the airways, single port access surgery, transurethral bladder cancer resection, cochlear implant surgery and OCT-guided retinal micro-surgery.

Dr. Nabil Simaan received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in 2002.

Lunch will be served at 11:30 am.