Calendar

Mar
23
Fri
JHU Robotics Industry Day 2018 @ Glass Pavilion, Levering Hall
Mar 23 @ 8:00 am – 3:00 pm

 

The Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics will highlight its elite robotics students and showcase cutting-edge research projects in areas that include Medical Robotics, Extreme Environments Robotics, Human-Machine Systems for Manufacturing, BioRobotics and more. JHU Robotics Industry Day will take place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Hackerman Hall on the Homewood Campus at Johns Hopkins University.

Robotics Industry Day will provide top companies and organizations in the private and public sectors with access to the LCSR’s forward-thinking, solution-driven students. The event will also serve as an informal opportunity to explore university-industry partnerships.

You will experience dynamic presentations and discussions, observe live demonstrations, and participate in speed networking sessions that afford you the opportunity to meet Johns Hopkins most talented robotics students before they graduate.

Please contact Ashley Moriarty if you have any questions. You can register HERE.


Download our 2018 Industry Day booklet

Schedule of Events

(times are subject to change)
8:00 Registration and Continental Breakfast Glass Pavilion, Levering Hall
8:30 Welcome: Larry Nagahara, Dean
8:35 Introduction to LCSR: Russell H. Taylor, Director
8:55 Louis Whitcomb, LCSR Education
9:05 Gregory Hager, Director of MECH
9:20 Brian Roberts, NASA
9:35 Bruce Lichorowic, Galen Robotics
9:50 Ashley Llorens, JHU Applied Physics Lab
10:05
Paul Thienphrapa, Phillips
10:20 Coffee Break
10:30 Christy Wyskiel, Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures
10:45 Simon DiMaio, Intuitive Surgical
11:00 Benjamin Gibbs, READY Robotics
11:15 Clif Burdette, Acoustic MedSystems
11:30 Chien-Ming Huang, New LCSR Faculty
11:50 Closing: Russell H. Taylor, Director
12:00 Lunch Glass Pavilion, Levering Hall
12:30-2:00 Poster + Demo Session Hackerman Hall, Robotorium
2:00-3:00 Student and Industry Reception Hackerman Hall, 320
 3:30-5:30  SAB Meeting Malone 107

 

 


Please contact Ashley Moriarty if you have any questions.

Mar
28
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Samuel Kadoury “Computational 3D Spine Imaging: From Disease Prognosis to Surgical Guidance” @ Hackerman B17
Mar 28 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Speaker: Prof. Samuel Kadoury, Ph.D., P.Eng., Polytechnique Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Medical Imaging and Assisted Interventions

ABSTRACT:

Spinal deformities such as adolescent idiopathic scoliosis are complex 3D deformations of the musculoskeletal trunk. For the past two decades, 3D spine reconstructions obtained from diagnostic scans have assisted orthopedists assess the severity of deformations and establish treatment strategies. However, these procedures required significant manual intervention and were not suited for routine clinical practice.  This presentation will expose computational methods recently developed in our lab based on machine learning and statistical analysis to automatically reconstruct the personalized spine geometry from X-rays, classify various deformation patterns in 3D, predict disease progression and perform intra-operative guidance during surgical procedures, with the use of biomechanical simulation models and multi-modal registration. Experiments performed at the CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital on adolescent patients demonstrate the potential clinical benefit of capturing statistical variations in the spine geometry to help diagnose and treat this disease.

BIO:

Samuel Kadoury is an associate professor in the Computer and Software Engineering Department at Polytechnique Montreal and researcher at the University of Montreal Research Hospital Center. He is the director of the Medical Image Computing and Analysis Lab at Polytechnique Montreal and holds the Canada Research Chair in Medical Imaging and Assisted Interventions. He obtained his M.Sc. from McGill University and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at the University of Montreal, with his thesis on orthopedic imaging. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Ecole Centrale de Paris and was a clinical research scientist for Philips Research at the National Institutes of Health, developing image-guided systems for liver and prostate cancer. Dr. Kadoury has published and presented his work in a number of conferences and journals such as Radiology, ISMRM, IEEE TMI,  Medical Image Analysis, MICCAI and IPCAI, and served as Area Chair for conferences such as MICCAI and CVPR. He has also been granted five international and US patents the field of image-guided interventions and is co-recipient of the NIH merit award and the RSNA Cum Laude Award for his work in artificial intelligence for liver cancer detection.

Apr
4
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Kyle Reed “Asymmetries in Symmetric Human Motions and Rehabilitation” @ Hackerman B17
Apr 4 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Abstract:

This presentation will discuss how symmetric and asymmetric motions can be used for training and rehabilitation. Many daily tasks require that a person use both hands simultaneously, such as moving a large book or opening the lid on a jar. Such bimanual tasks are difficult for people who have a stroke, but the tight neural coupling across the body has been hypothesized to allow individuals to self-rehabilitate by physically coupling their hands. The interaction discussed here separates the task and guidance forces by guiding one hand so the user can actively recreate the motion with their other hand that receives task-related forces. This method is based on the ability of humans to easily move their hands through similar paths, such as drawing circles, compared to the difficulty of simultaneously drawing a square with one hand and a circle with the other. Experiments were performed to characterize the reference frames, interaction stiffnesses, and trajectories that humans can recreate.

 

The second half of this presentation will focus on gait rehabilitation for individuals with asymmetric impairments. Asymmetric gait is caused by many impairments, such as leg-length discrepancy, prosthetics, and stroke. Using a model of gait based on kinematic synchronization, it is shown that some types of symmetry can be generated in a person with an asymmetric impairment, but not simultaneously in both motions and forces. To balance the limitation of always having some asymmetries, perception of gait is used to put limits upon what appears symmetric even if it is not perfectly symmetric. One rehabilitation method, the Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe (GEMS), uses an exaggerated asymmetric motion to generate an after-effect that has a better walking pattern. The GEMS uses a Kinetic Shape wheel to passively redirect the user’s natural downward forces while walking into a backward motion that generates a corrective after-effect. The Kinetic Shape has also been applied to the tip of a walking crutch to assist in locomotion. At the conclusion of this talk, you should have a better understanding of the symmetries and asymmetries that exist in your daily motions.

 

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Kyle Reed is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida. He was a Post-Doctoral Scholar in the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics at Johns Hopkins University from 2007-2009. He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2007 and B.S. from the University of Tennessee in 2001, all in Mechanical Engineering. He has received funding from NSF, NIH, Florida High Tech Corridor, and industry. His research interests are in medical/rehabilitation robotics and human-centered robotics, which include designing intuitive and cooperative devices that interact with humans, as well as engineering education. More information about Dr. Reed and his research can be found at http://reedlab.eng.usf.edu

Apr
11
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Aaron Becker “Robot Swarm Tricks: Overcoming Severe Under-Actuation and Limited Sensing” @ Hackerman B17
Apr 11 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Abstract:

Steered particles offer a method for targeted therapy, interventions, and drug delivery in regions inaccessible by large robots. Magnetic actuation has the benefits of requiring no tethers, being able to operate from a distance, and in some cases allows imaging for feedback (e.g. MRI). However, for MRI and setups where the distances between external magnets are much larger than the robot workspace, the magnetic field is approximately uniform across the workspace.  Moreover, the system is severely under-actuated when there are more particles than control inputs. In my talk I’ll share tricks we use to overcome this underactuation for coverage, manipulation, self-assembly, and steering large numbers of particles.   You can help — visit http://swarmcontrol.net and play some games.

 

Bio

Aaron Becker’s passion is robotics and control. Currently as an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston, he is building a robotics lab. NSF selected Aaron for the CAREER award  in 2016 to study massive manipulation with swarms: using a shared input to drive large populations of robots to arbitrary goal states. Becker won the Best Paper award at IROS 2014. As a Research Fellow in a joint appointment with Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he implemented robotics powered and controlled by the magnetic field of an MRI. As a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Rice University, Aaron investigated control of distributed systems and nanorobotics with experts in the fields. His online game http://swarmcontrol.net seeks to understand the best ways to control a swarm of robots by a human. The project achieves this through a community of game-developed experts. Aaron earned his PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Apr
18
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Michael Miga “Computational Modeling for Enabling Therapy Guidance: Applications in Soft-Tissue” @ Hackerman B17
Apr 18 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Abstract:

Often within the clinical domain, the practical translation of computational modeling for therapeutic benefit is criticized as being idealized or not compatible with real clinical practice.  As a result, the integration of these powerful approaches within the workflow of procedural medicine has been diminished.  However, with continued improvements in computing and instrumentation, the ability to translate complex models from idealized prospective predictive roles to ones that are more integrated within therapeutic and novel imaging frameworks is becoming a rapid reality.  Recent advances in biophysical model-embedded systems designed to enable novel soft-tissue surgical/interventional applications are an excellent example and will be explored in this talk.  The paradigm suggested is that procedural precision medicine should not be limited to only the use of patient data (e.g. imaging, biomarkers, physiological variables, etc.) for staging and conventional guidance, but, in addition, it should also serve as a patient-specific scaffold that when combined with advanced computation and instrumentation can add new enhanced capabilities to therapeutic guidance and delivery.  This is a paradigm that challenges convention because it advocates a more collaborative intraoperative patient care environment with diverse teams of engineers, scientists, and physicians working together to best meet therapeutic procedural goals.

 

Short Biography:  Michael I. Miga, Ph.D. received his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Rhode Island in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in 1992, 1994, respectively.  He received his Ph.D. from Dartmouth College in Engineering with Biomedical Specialization in 1998.  The focus of his doctoral research was on computational biomechanical models of the brain for surgical applications.  He stayed on for a post-doctoral training experience continuing that work and initiating projects in areas of inverse problems (elastography and epileptogenic source localization).  He joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University in the Spring of 2001 and is currently Vanderbilt’s Harvie Branscomb Professor.  He is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering with appointments in Radiology and Radiological Sciences, and Neurological Surgery.  He is director of the Biomedical Modeling Laboratory, co-founder of the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE, www.vanderbilt.edu/vise ).  He was a co-inventor of the first FDA approved image-guided liver surgery system.  He is currently PI on several NIH research grants concerned with model-enhanced image-guided brain, liver, kidney, and breast surgery. He is also involved in modeling efforts for predictive forecasting in neoadjuvant chemotherapy outcomes for breast cancer, and differentiating brain tumor radio-necrosis from recurrence in radiosurgery.  In addition, he recently created a novel NIH-T32 training program focused at training engineers to create novel technology platforms for treatment and discovery within surgery and intervention.  Dr. Miga is also an American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellow and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Imaging.  He has also served extensively on NIH panels to include being a former charter member of the Biomedical Imaging Technology (BMIT) study section, and recently taking on a new charter member role with the Bioengineering, Technology, and Surgical Sciences (BTSS) study section.  His research interests are in computational modeling for surgical and interventional applications, inverse problems in therapeutics and imaging, and image-guided surgery.

 

Apr
25
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Shameema Sikder “Using technology to make better surgeons: a case study in Ophthalmology” @ Hackerman B17
Apr 25 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Abstract:
It is well-established that surgical care directly affects patients’ quality of life, and that poor quality surgical care increases the risk of death and other severe complications. The process of ensuring high quality surgical care begins with educating, efficiently training, and credentialing competent surgeons. While there is currently no global consensus for surgical competency, most definitions refer to the level of skill required to safely perform a particular procedure.  Most tend to think of surgical competency as relating to both technical and non-technical skill as well as judgment during a procedure, and so being able to assess and, more importantly, improve on each of these aspects ultimately drives the quality of surgical care that exists throughout the healthcare system. This talk will focus on the use of current technology available to train surgeons and explore new research strategies in computer science to improve training.

Bio:
Shameema Sikder, M.D., is an assistant professor of ophthalmology and founding medical director of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Bethesda. She specializes in corneal disorders, including Fuchs dystrophy and keratoconus; complex cataracts and external eye diseases. Dr. Sikder’s clinical interests include surgical treatments for corneal diseases. Dr. Sikder is also director of the Center of Excellence for Ophthalmic Surgical Education and Training (OphSET) at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She has a particular interest in surgical education and is working on a technologies that could be implemented at the international level to improve the level of ophthalmic surgical care.  Dr. Sikder received her M.D. degree from the University of Arizona. She completed her ophthalmology residency at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins and fellowship in cornea and refractive disease at the Moran Eye Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she received the Claes Dohlman Fellow of the Year Award, recognizing the most distinguished cornea fellow in the nation. Dr. Sikder returned to Wilmer in 2011 and served as assistant chief of service (chief resident) and associate director of ocular trauma.

May
2
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Ross Hatton “Snakes & Spiders, Robots & Geometry” @ Hackerman B17
May 2 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Last Seminar of the Semester.

 

Abstract:

Locomotion and perception are a common thread between robotics and biology. Understanding these phenomena at a mechanical level involves nonlinear dynamics and the coordination of many degrees of freedom. In this talk, I will discuss geometric approaches to organizing this information in two problem domains: Undulatory locomotion of snakes and swimmers, and vibration propagation in spider webs.

In the first section, I will discuss how differential geometry and Lie group theory provide insight into the locomotion of undulating systems through a vocabulary of lengths, areas, and curvatures. In particular, a tool called the *Lie bracket* combines these geometric concepts to describe the effects of cyclic changes in the locomotor’s shape, such as the gaits used by swimming or crawling systems. Building on these results, I will demonstrate that the geometric techniques are useful beyond the “clean” ideal systems on which they have traditionally been developed, and can provide insight into the motion of systems with considerably more complex dynamics, such as locomotors in granular media.

In the second section, I will turn my attention to vibration propagation through spiders’ webs. Due to poor eyesight, many spiders rely on web vibrations for situational awareness. Web-borne vibrations are used to determine the location of prey, predators, and potential mates. The influence of web geometry and composition on web vibrations is important for understanding spider’s behavior and ecology. Past studies on web vibrations have experimentally measured the frequency response of web geometries by removing threads from existing webs. The full influence of web structure and tension distribution on vibration transmission; however, has not been addressed in prior work. We have constructed physical artificial webs and computer models to better understand the effect of web structure on vibration transmission. These models provide insight into the propagation of vibrations through the webs, the frequency response of the bare web, and the influence of the spider’s mass and stiffness on the vibration transmission patterns.

Bio:

Ross L. Hatton is an Assistant Professor of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University, where he directs the Laboratory for Robotics and Applied Mechanics. He received PhD and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, following an SB in the same from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanics of locomotion and sensory perception, making advances in mathematical theory accessible to an engineering audience, and on finding abstractions that facilitate human control of unconventional locomotors. Hatton’s group also works with local industry to transfer modern developments in robotics from the lab to the factory or commercial production. Dr. Hatton is the recipient of a 2017 NSF CAREER award to further his work in the dynamics of locomotion.

 

May
9
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Jizong Zhao “Combined Surgical and Endovascular Treatment of Arteriovenous Malformation in the Hybrid Operating Room” @ Hackerman B17
May 9 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Abstract:

Microsurgical resection, endovascular means and stereotactic radiotherapy are the major treatments of cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVM) and each method has its own limitations. Preoperative fractionation embolization can reduce bleeding and surgical risk, however, patients have to experience repeated pain due to the repeated treatments, and face the risk of rupture of AVM during treatment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the advantages and safety of combined surgical and endovascular. One hundred and ninety-five patients were successfully completed with combination of endovascular therapy and craniotomy in the hybrid operating room from February 2016 to July 2017 in Beijing Tiantan Hospital. We get our initial experience of combined surgical and endovascular procedures in hybrid operating room (OR) in the treatment of cerebral AVM. Hybrid operation can improve the ratio of total resection and efficacy of surgery of cerebral AVM, and reduce post-operative complications, medical costs and the repeated pain due to the repeated DSA examinations.

 

Bio:

Professor Jizong Zhao, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof. Zhao is the director, doctoral supervisor, and Chief of Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University. Prof. Zhao also serves as the Member of the Expert Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Director of China National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Chairman of the 4–6th Chinese Medical Association Neurosurgery Branch, President of the Chinese Stroke Society, member of the Executive Committee of the World Neurosurgical Union (WFNS), Nomination Committee Member of the United States ANNS, Chairman of the Committee of the Dandy Neurosurgery Society of China, director of the National Higher Education Medical Textbook Research Council, chief editor of Chinese Neurosurgical Journal, deputy editor of Chinese Medical Journal and the Chinese Medical Journal (English version), editor of eight international journals in the field of neurosurgery, including Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.

Dr. Zhao’s research mainly focuses on cerebrovascular disease and brain tumor. He was the principal investigator of China’s ninth, tenth and eleventh Five-Year Plan for Science & Technology Support and honored with National Science & Technology Progress Awards. Prof. Zhao published more than 490 peer-reviewed articles papers, including over 90 SCI included articles and 9 books in the field of neurosurgery. As a world-wide recognized neurosurgeon and clinical neuroscience researcher, Dr. Zhao also serves on the editorial boards of seven scientific journals including Neurosurgical Review, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience and  Neurosurgery.

Aug
24
Fri
LCSR: New Student Orientation @ Hackerman 320
Aug 24 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am
Sep
5
Wed
LCSR Seminar: Welcome Town Hall @ Hackerman B17
Sep 5 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Abstract

 

This is the Fall 2018 Kick-Off Seminar, presenting an overview of LCSR, useful information, and an introduction to the faculty and labs. Guests: Sue Vazakas (Librarian) and Career Services