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Robotic systems have the potential to greatly enhance physician performance, improve patient care, and increase quality of life. My research addresses fundamental algorithmic challenges required to enable robots to safely and autonomously complete tasks in clinical and home environments.
With appropriate software and algorithms, emerging medical robots can increase the speed and precision of surgical tasks and enable new, less invasive procedures beyond current clinical capabilities. New personal robots have the potential to autonomously perform everyday tasks and assist individuals in their homes.
In the Computational Robotics Research Group, we develop new robot motion planning algorithms and physically-based simulations for applications in clinical and home environments, including surgical assistance, treatment planning, medical image registration, physician training, and personal assistance.
My research spans the following areas:
- Motion Planning for Healthcare Robotics:
The objective of motion planning in robotics is to compute actions that will guide a robot such as a surgical device or robot arm around obstacles to accomplish a task, such as reaching a tumor inside the body or cleaning a table. We are developing new motion planning algorithms by combining sampling-based methods, optimal control, and learning methods. These motion planning algorithms must address key challenges that arise in healthcare applications, including tissue deformations and uncertainty in robot motion, sensing, and the environment.
- Physically-based Medical Simulation:
Human soft tissues are heterogeneous and have nonlinear properties, resulting in complex deformations during clinical procedures.
Using finite element methods and mesh maintenance algorithms, we are developing simulations of soft tissues and their interaction with medical devices.
These simulations can be used for interactive physician training, procedure planning, and to assist in the registration of diagnostic and treatment images obtained at different times.
More information on ongoing research is available on the Computational Robotics Research Group site.
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