The haptic underwater robotics spinoff BluHaptics has received an NSF Phase II Small Business Innovative Research grant. The $747,179 grant will fund the company’s remotely operated vehicle software. Geekwire profiled the company and its research in an online article. More information can also be found on the BluHaptics website.
Raven in the news!
The Raven surgical robot was featured in episode 5 of “Heartbeat”, NBC’s new medical drama. Check out the episode here.
Also, BRL’s spinoff company Applied Dexterity took Raven to NASA as a part of efforts to take the surgical robot to the International Space Station. Applied Dexterity talked about their visit here.
Volitional DBS control featured in Medtronic video
Medtronic has released a video featuring the work of Jeffrey Herron, Dr Howard Chizeck, and neurosurgeon collaborator Dr Andrew Ko. Their new deep brain stimulation hardware can sense neural signals as well as stimulate. Jeffrey has used their system to modulate stimulation and lay the groundwork for further volitional control. Read the article here and watch the video below.
Two awards for Sam Burden!
Congratulations to BRL and EE Assistant Professor Sam Burden on receiving two funding awards! He received a two-year award from the Research Initiation Initiative Award from the NSF Cyber-Physical Systems Program in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. This is in support of his work on safety in human and robot interactions. Read more about it here.
He also received a three-year Young Investigator Program Award from the Army Research Office, one of the highest awards from the Army. This is in support of his research into legged robot locomotion. Read more about it here.
Again, congrats Sam!
Welcome spring quarter 2016!
Spring break has ended and we’re ready for another busy quarter here at BRL. We’d like to recognize the accomplishments of our students over winter quarter:
- Maggie Thompson and our collaborators had a paper accepted for the 6th International Brain Computer Interface meeting
- M. Thompson, J. Herron, A. Ko, and H. Chizeck. (2016). Demonstration of a Chronic Brain-Computer Interface using a Deep Brain Stimulator. In: 6th International Brain-Computer Interface Meeting.
- Bora Banjanin presented his work on estimating predictive dynamic models of legged locomotion from data at a conference and a workshop:
- B. Banjanin, S. Burden, T. Moore, S. Revzen, and R. Full. “Estimating predictive dynamical models of legged locomotion from
data,” Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology, Portland, Oregon, Jan 5, 2016. - B. Banjanin. “Estimating predictive dynamical models of legged locomotion from data,” Fifth Annual Winter Workshop on Neuromechanics and Dynamics of Locomotion, New Orleans, Louisiana, Jan 21-22, 2016.
- B. Banjanin, S. Burden, T. Moore, S. Revzen, and R. Full. “Estimating predictive dynamical models of legged locomotion from
- We had three papers accepted to the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation:
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Yangming Li*, Muneaki Miyasaka, Mohammad Haghighipanah, Blake HannafordDynamic Modeling of Cable Driven Elongated Surgical Instruments for Sensorless Grip Force Estimation
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Mohammad Haghighipanah*, Muneaki Miyasaka, Yangming Li, Blake HannafordUnscented Kalman Filter and 3D Vision to Improve Cable Driven Surgical Robot Joint Angle Estimation
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Muneaki Miyasaka*, Mohammad Haghighipanah, Blake HannafordHysteresis Model of Longitudinally Loaded Cable for Cable Driven Robots and Identification of the Parameters
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Congratulations to all of our accepted authors and presenters!
Popular Mechanics features BRL
The Surgeon Will See You Now is one of the latest articles from Popular Mechanics, and it features researchers and work from the BioRobotics Lab. Blake Hannaford discusses the digital infrastructure needed for telerobotic surgery. Howard Chizeck is also interviewed about his student’s research last year involving teleoperation security (available from arXiv: To Make a Robot Secure).
BRL volunteers with Hour of Code
On Sunday, BRL lab members Andrew Pace and Katherine Pratt volunteered at the Museum of Flight with an afternoon of technology and Hour of Code. Over a dozen mostly female students from 2nd, 4th, and 6th-8th grader rotated through four stations: Star Wars, Minecraft, littleBits, and offline coding. Students learned to program using Java and drag-and-drop. Afterward, they watched a video of the recent successful Blue Origin launch and landing, and were able to ask questions with one of their engineers. It was a fun, enjoyable, and most importantly educational afternoon.
Hour of Code is an annual program run by Code.Org, a non-profit based in Seattle that aims to increase exposure and involvement with computer science especially with females and underrepresented minorities.
BRL Graduate Student Timothy Brown Wins CSNE Hackathon
Last weekend, BRL graduate student Tim Brown competed in the NSF Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering‘s second-annual Hackathon. In this competition, fifteen students gathered from the University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, and Spelman College. The contestants formed teams of three; these teams were given 36 hours to develop an innovative technology that addresses some problem related to sensorimotor neural engineering. Tim and his teammates—Rin Yunis from MIT and Jaycee Holmes from Spelman—were awarded first place! Congratulations!
Click here to read more about the competition.
BRL researchers work to give surgeons ear sculpting practice
Work done by BRL researchers Angelique Berens and Sharon Newman to improve how surgeons help children with missing or underdeveloped ears has been has been highlighted by the UW Today news. They have been working on a new technique to allow surgeons to practice carving a new ear from rib cartilage before the actual surgery takes place. Using a patient’s CT scan to make a mold allows them to quickly and cheaply make lifelike practice models that will lead to surgeons having more expertise in ear sculpting techniques. Read the full story here –
BRL graduate student Katherine Pratt wins CSNE Perfect Pitch Competition!
Last Friday, BRL-affiliated graduate students Katherine Pratt and Tim Brown competed in the NSF Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering Perfect Pitch competition. The competition challenges students to condense their research into a 90 second elevator pitch that succinctly conveys the goals and value of their work. Each pitch is then judged by a panel of CSNE-affiliated industry members and entrepreneurs on both the merit of the work and the presentation sytle. When the final results were tallied, Katherine was awarded with first place in the competition! A video of her pitch is included below. Congratulations Katherine!