Towards Autonomous Surgical Robots: New Strategies in Design, Control, and AI
Date & Time: Fri, Aug 23, 11am-noon
Location: Pratt 266
Speaker: Dr. Michael Yip (UCSD)
Abstract: This talk will discuss how autonomy may be used in solving surgical problems in the future, from remote telesurgery to controlling minimally invasive snake-like robots. The talk will be divided into three topics: how autonomy can play a role in overcoming challenges in realizing remote surgery, where surgeons operate on patients through robot teleoperation at long distances; how autonomy can be used and is practically required to control the next generation of snake-like, millimeter-diameter minimally invasive surgical devices; and how different levels of autonomy can be learned using imitation learning, or mimicking an expert.
Short Bio: Michael Yip is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, IEEE RAS Distinguished Lecturer, Hellman Fellow, and Director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab). His group currently focuses on solving problems in data-efficient and computationally efficient robot control and motion planning through the use of various forms of learning representations, including deep learning and reinforcement learning strategies. His lab applies these ideas to surgical robotics and the automation of surgical procedures. Previously, Dr. Yip’s research has investigated different facets of model-free control, planning, haptics, soft robotics and computer vision strategies, all towards achieving automated surgery. Dr. Yip’s work has been recognized through several best paper awards at ICRA, including the 2016 best paper award for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Dr. Yip has previously been a research associate with Disney Research in Los Angeles involved in animatronics design, and most recently held a visiting research position with Amazon Robotics Machine Learning and Computer Vision group in Seattle. He received a B.Sc. in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Stanford University.