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Research

In the Telerobotics Lab, we're interested in robotic systems that manipulate remote environments. A primary focus of our work is medical telerobotics. Particularly, we are investigating wireless magnetically controlled microrobots to navigate inside the human body. Rather than acting as autonomous systems, our microrobots act more like end-effectors of novel teleoperation system unlike anything that has ever existed. Many of our system rely on the intelligence of a human operator directly in the control loop. We are interested in designing systems that enable effective human control our novel teleoperation systems. In addition to human intelligence, some telerobotic system involve the human sense of touch as an integral part of the control loop. This is the branch of robotics research known as haptics. During haptic interaction, the human user exchanges both power and information with the robotic system through touch. Haptic systems can be extremely intuitive to use, but designing haptic systems involves many challenging engineering problems.

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Current Projects

Wireless Magnetic Biomedical Microrobots

Wireless magnetic microrobots will enable therapeutic and diagnostic procedures never before possible.

Robotic Assistance for Cochlear Implants

Our goal is to make cochlear implant procedures safer, and to enable the implantation of better implants that lead to improved hearing.

Teleopereration of Novel Systems

What is the best way to control a novel teleoperation system? Should we include haptic feedback to the human operator? Can we superimpose virtual constraints and guides to provide task assistance to the operator? These are some of the questions we investigate.

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Past Projects

Self-Assembling Swallowable Modular Robots

There is a great deal of interest in wireless biomedical robots for the gastrointestinal tract. However, miniaturization and improved functionality are competing goals. The solution: swallowing small simple modules that self-assemble into a complete robotic system once inside the GI tract.

Stable Haptic Interaction

Haptic system can be very intuitive for human operators. During haptic interaction, humans exchange both power and information with a robotic system through touch. This leads to many interesting challenges in the design of hardware and control systems.

Haptic Virtual Fixtures for Task Assistance in Telemanipulation

Haptic virtual fixtures can assist a human operator during telemanipulation tasks that exhibit some degree of structure. Forbidden-region virtual fixtures help keep the operator keep the manipulator out of undesirable location, and guidance virtual fixtures help the operator move the manipulator along desired paths and surfaces.

Pulse-Frequency-Modulation Control of Neuroprostheses

The human nervous system uses a method of communicating information that is essentially unknown to control systems engineers. In pulse frequency modulation, the signal's value is encoded in the instantaneous frequency of a string of identical pulses.