Advanced Medical Robot Lab (AMRLab)

Research topics

Advanced Medical Robot Lab (AMRLab) is dedicated to exploring advanced robots for medical application.

Description of your research

We mainly focus on advanced mechanism design, system control, robotic sensing and human-robot physical interaction.
 

• Multifunctional robot for minimally invasive surgery

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has massive advantages over open surgery, such as shortened recovery time, less postoperative complications, cosmetic benefit and lower anesthesia requirement. Robot-assisted MIS is an emerging medical application and appeals to be used in practical surgery with its benefits to provide motion scaling, visual immersion and termer filtration. However, the changing of tooltips during the robot-assisted surgery could increase the surgery time and create a secondary tissue damage. Our research focuses on developing miniature multifunctional robotic manipulator which could change tooltips automatically.

• Smart robotic walker

Passive walkers or other existing tools disrupt mobility-impaired users’ walking rhythm and increase their metabolic energy consumption. We are developing a robotic walker which could not only provide active walking assistance, but also promote intuitive interaction to help the users regain their mobility.

• UAV for medical emergency application

We are developing a UAV system which could land in various extreme environments to do an emergency medical rescue.

• Robot to fight against COVID-19

In the most horrible COVID-19 pandemic, many medical workers contracted the disease. In order to protect medical workers, our lab is working to minimize medical workers’ exposure to the contagious environment through engineering ways. We are developing a throat swab robotic system to help our medical work fight against the disease.

Potential deadline

It is hard to say the deadlines. Continuation of the projects depends on funding support.

How the project is funded

We are mainly pursuing NSF and NIH funds to support our research. We also seek seed funding from both internal and external foundations. The project of multifunctional robot for minimally invasive surgery has been recommended for funding by a foundation and is highly promising to be funded soon.