Enabling the Energy-based Autonomous Robotic Surgery

Speaker

Joseph Bentsman, Mechanical Science and Engineering Department
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Title

"Enabling the Energy-based Autonomous Robotic Surgery"

Abstract

We first recap the current approaches to robotic surgery and discuss the technology gap that exists in robot-assisted surgery (DaVinci system). We then state what is needed to develop fully-autonomous surgical robots, introduce energy-based surgery, with focus on electrosurgery, and argue why energy-based surgery might be more suited for autonomous systems. Then we loop- back to the need for smart autonomous reasoning and a predictive model, giving a short overview of mathematical modeling tasks. We then introduce sensors, and focus on the potential of thermal sensing with parameter estimation. We end the seminar with the discussion of the real-time robust adaptive control with fast adaptation to changes in the tissue, as well as unexpected behavior (e.g., bleeding.)

About Speaker 

Joseph Bentsman received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1984. He spent a year as a Lecturer and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. At present, he is Professor in the Departments of Mechanical Science and Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and in Carle-Illinois Medical School, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of two books, over 75 journals and over 150 conference papers in various areas of control theory and practice, and the recipient of several major awards. He led the NSF/Industry supported controller design effort in continuous casting that resulted in two key control systems currently in production at Nucor Steel and Clifford Cliffs. He is an ASME Fellow.