Blake Hannaford, Ph.D.
Department of Electrical Engineering (BioRobotics Lab)
"The Healing Touch: Haptics and Biomechanics of Surgery"
ABSTRACT
Surgery is the ultimate "hands-on" medical therapy. It has been
performed for
thousands of years. New technologies are radically
transforming many
aspects of surgery and changing the paradigm of surgical
training. These
include surgical robot systems and surgical simulators. Both of these
technologies involve haptic interfaces --- human computer interaction
technology which supports physical touching and interacting with remote
or
virtual objects.
As these technologies develop, there is a need for quantitative
understanding
of the biomechanics of surgery --- knowledge essential to proper
simulation
and robotic enhancement of surgery.