Research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My current research interests are mostly centered around building effective surgical robots. This in an overarching goal, and translates in a variety of more specific research objectives.
First, and foremost, I'm interested in the design of multi-sensory interfaces, allowing interaction with simulated or remotely located environments. More specifically, I'm interested in how the combination of visual feedback (medical imaging sources, computer graphics), and haptic interaction can be used most effectively by a physician to navigate a surgical tool (e.g. a robotic catheter) inside the human anatomy (e.g. the human heart). I think of this as human machine interaction for medical robots.
I'm also interested in how to combine position sensors with medical imaging techniques to better localize robotic tools inside human anatomy when endoscopes cannot be used (e.g. when navigating the blood pool).
Finally, I'm interested in the design, modelling, and control of multi-degree-of-freedom robotic surgical tools, such as the Artisan robotic catheter.

Most of my doctoral and post-doctoral research focused on haptic interfaces, i.e. electro-mechanical systems that stimulate the human sense of touch, and integrating them with simulated environments as well as graphics and auditory displays. My past research spanned haptic rendering algorithms, control of haptic interaction, simulation, robotics, HCI, haptic device design, control theory, and virtual reality. I worked on a variety of haptic interfaces for VR and their application to surgical simulation for training, art, and media.
I was one of the creators of chai3d, which is now one of the most widely used APIs for haptic interaction.

 

 

 

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