Assistive Devices and Medical Robotics

 This theme concerns with design and development of special purpose mechanisms and devices which can assist the surgeons in performing various operations. One example that is being address is the design and development of passive/active mechanisms which can be used in laparoscopic operations. These ranges from passive stand for holding various laparoscopic tools and Image Guided Surgery to a design of a haptic interface with added dexterity.

In addition, under this theme, various design concepts are being constantly explored for helping the physically challenged and elderly population for better manipulation of their environment.

Some of the recent publications related to this theme are:

A Robotics Case Study: Optimal Design for Laparoscopic Positioning Stands,
Proceedings of 1997 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, (co-authored with Ali Faraz and Shahram Payandeh)

Issues and Design Concepts in Endoscopic Extenders,
Proceedings of 1995 IFAC Man/Machine Systems, pp. 231-236, MIT (Boston), (co-authored with Ali Faraz, Shahram Payandeh and Alex Nagy)

Synthesis and Workspace Study of Endoscopic Extenders with Flexible Stems,
ERL Technical Report, (co-authored with Ali Faraz and Shahram Payandeh)

A Study of Active Shifting of Human Driver for Improving Wheelchair Tipping Stability,
ERL Technical Report, (co-authored with William Li and Shahram Payandeh)

Task and Motion Analysis in Endoscopic Surgery,
Proceedings of 5ht Annual Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator, 1996, pp. 583-590, (co-authored with Caroline Cao, Christine MacKenzie and Shahram Payandeh)

Force Propagation Models in Laparoscopic Extenders and Trainers,
ERL Technical Report, (co-authored with Shahram Payandeh)

Toward Evaluation of Shape Memory Alloy Actuators for Endosurgery,
Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 1995, pp. 1991-1996 (co-authored with Kaari Koehen and Shahram Payandeh)

Toward Approximate Models of Coulomb Frictional Moments in: (I) Revolute Pin Joints and (II) Spherical-Socket Ball Joint,
Journal of Engnineering Mathematics, Vol. 20, pp. 283-296, 2001 (co-authored with Ali Faraz and Shahram Payandeh)

Design and Development of Actuating System for Diagnostics Application in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS),
Proceedings of IEEE 2001 Conference on Engineering Application of Medicine (co-authored with Shahram Payandeh, Jason Rothe and Ash Parameswaran

On Defining Metrics for Assessing Laparoscopic Surgical Skills in a Virtual Training Environment,
Proceedings of 2002 Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference, (co-authored with Shahram Payandeh, Alan Lomax(MD), John Dill, Christine MacKenzie and Caroline Cao

Application of Visual Tracking for Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery ,
Journal of Robotics Systems, Vol. 19, No. 7, 2002, pp.315-328

Fuzzy Classification: Toward Evaluating Performance on a Surgical Simulator ,
Proceedings of MMVR'05,

Please also see the endoSCOPE page.