Session 4: Future Medical Robotics
Grundlegend neue Technologien ermöglichen auch neue Geschäftsmodelle. Wo liegen hier die Chancen für innovative Unternehmen – auf der „Hardware“-Ebene, aber auch bei intelligenten Dienstleistungen? Die vierte und letzte Session des Hightech-Summit erörtert ökonomische und strategische Fragestellungen.
Folgende Wissenschaftler beschreiben Beispiele und Möglichkeiten für neue Geschäftsmodelle
Dr. Stephan Martin, Principal Business AI Strategist bei SAP, beschreibt das disruptive Potential von generativer KI in Wirtschaft und Industrie.
In Theorie und Wissenschaft ist die Digitalisierung weit vorangeschritten. Jetzt verschmelzen Bits und Atome. Damit entstehen auch neue, wissenschafts- und technikgetriebene Geschäftsmodelle. Marc Carrel-Billiard, Senior Managing Director von Accenture und Leiter der F&E-Organisation Accenture Labs, gibt einen hoch spannenden Einblick in diese Entwicklung.
Dr. Michael Pfeiffer, Head of AI Research beim Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence (BCAI), Deutschland, skizziert den Weg von der KI-Forschung zu marktreifen Produkten, die aufgrund ihrer Komplexität immer neue Entwicklungs- und Konstruktionsverfahren erfordern.
Diese Entwicklung beantwortet Dr. Sameer Prabhu, Head of Market Development von MathWorks, USA, mit dem ‚Model Based Design‘, das z.B. zur Entwicklung von Chirurgie-Robotern, aber auch für die Planung kompletter smarter Fabriken genutzt werden kann.
Die Speaker und Vorträge dieser Session
Advanced surgical technologies, like digital ORs and robotics, generate vast data for enhancing patient care. However, leveraging this data efficiently during surgery, a complex and time-sensitive process, remains heavily reliant on surgical staff experience.
This talk focuses on AI-powered robotic surgery with a specific focus on analysis of intraoperative video data. The goal is to democratize surgical skills and enhance the collaboration between surgeons and cyber-physical systems by quantifying surgical experience and make it accessible to machines. Several examples to optimize the therapy of the individual patient along the surgical treatment path are given. Finally, remaining challenges and strategies to overcome them are discussed.
Stefanie Speidel is a full professor for “Translational Surgical Oncology” and director at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC) Dresden since 2017 as well as one of the speakers of the DFG Cluster of Excellence CeTI and the Konrad Zuse AI school SECAI. She received her PhD from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) with distinction in 2009 and had a junior research group “Computer-Assisted Surgery” from 2012 – 2016 at KIT. She is an elected board member of the MICCAI society, a MICCAI fellow, and an appointed member of the German Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures. She has been (co)-authoring more than 150 publications and regularly organizes workshops and challenges including the Endoscopic Vision Challenge@MICCAI and the Surgical Data Science workshop. She has been general chair and program chair for a number of international events including the International Conference on Information Processing in Computer Assisted Interventions (IPCAI) and MICCAI conference. Her current research interests include machine learning for image- and robot-assisted surgery.
Beyond the Scalpel: Revolutionizing Surgery with AI and Robotics
Advanced surgical technologies, like digital ORs and robotics, generate vast data for enhancing patient care. However, leveraging this data efficiently during surgery, a complex and time-sensitive process, remains heavily reliant on surgical staff experience.
This talk focuses on AI-powered robotic surgery with a specific focus on analysis of intraoperative video data. The goal is to democratize surgical skills and enhance the collaboration between surgeons and cyber-physical systems by quantifying surgical experience and make it accessible to machines. Several examples to optimize the therapy of the individual patient along the surgical treatment path are given. Finally, remaining challenges and strategies to overcome them are discussed.
Hightech Summit Session 4: Future Medical Robotics
Magnetic fields offer the possibility of manipulating objects from a distance and are ideal for medical applications, as they penetrate human tissue without inflicting any harm on the patient. Magnetic fields can be harnessed to actuate surgical robots, enhancing the capabilities of surgeons in reaching deep into the human anatomy through complex winding pathways, thus providing minimally invasive access to organs that are out of reach with current technologies. In this talk, we will explore various robotic architectures based on magnetic control, specifically designed for lifesaving clinical applications.
Pietro Valdastri is Full Professor and Chair in Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the University of Leeds. He directs the Science and Technologies Of Robotics in Medicine (STORM) Lab, focusing on intelligent robots to fight cancer, the Institute of Robotics, Autonomous System and Sensing (IRASS), and the Robotics at Leeds network. He received his Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2001 and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2006. After the PhD, he became Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. In 2011, Prof Valdastri moved to Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering until 2016, when he relocated to Leeds.
He has published more than 150 peer reviewed journal papers in the field of medical robotics and has been principal investigator on grants in excess of $24M supported by NSF, NIH, ERC, EU-H2020, Cancer Research UK, The Royal Society, EPSRC, ARIA, Innovate UK and industry, including the NSF CAREER Award with the proposal “Lifesaving Capsule Robots” in 2015, the ERC Consolidator Grant Award with the proposal “NoLiMiTs – Novel Lifesaving Magnetic Tentacles” in 2019, and the KUKA Innovation Award for his robotic colonoscopy platform in 2019. Prof. Valdastri is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Editor for Medical and Rehabilitation Robotics of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and a member of the steering committee of the International Society for Medical Innovation and Technology (iSMIT). STORM Lab’s research has been featured by several news outlets, including the BBC, The Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, New Scientist, The Spectator, WIRED, IEEE Spectrum, Medgadget, Daily Mail, The Engineer, Ingenia Magazine, Medical Design Technology Magazine, Medical Xpress, Newswise, NSF Science Now. Prof Valdastri also completed a successful entrepreneurial cycle with WinMedical s.r.l., a company he co-founded in 2009 and that was acquired by a larger enterprise in 2017. He recently started a new company, Atlas Endoscopy Limited, to bring his robotic colonoscopy platform to patients.
Lifesaving soft magnetic surgical robots
Magnetic fields offer the possibility of manipulating objects from a distance and are ideal for medical applications, as they penetrate human tissue without inflicting any harm on the patient. Magnetic fields can be harnessed to actuate surgical robots, enhancing the capabilities of surgeons in reaching deep into the human anatomy through complex winding pathways, thus providing minimally invasive access to organs that are out of reach with current technologies. In this talk, we will explore various robotic architectures based on magnetic control, specifically designed for lifesaving clinical applications.
Hightech Summit Session 4: Future Medical Robotics
In this talk, we will explore the transformative impact of robotics in healthcare, highlighting its most significant achievements, notable failures, and the challenges that lie ahead. From surgical robots revolutionizing precision in the operating room to robotic exoskeletons aiding in-patient rehabilitation, we will delve into the innovations that have reshaped medical practices. We will also examine the setbacks and limitations faced by these technologies, providing a balanced view of their current state. Finally, we will discuss the future challenges and opportunities for robotics in healthcare, envisioning a path towards more advanced and integrated solutions.
Engineer Chiheb Dahmani, PhD, and his team develop medical assistance robots that are intended to help hospital staff with routine tasks and allow them to spend more of their time on what really matters: Caring for their patients.
Dahmani, who was born and grew up in Tunisia, is an enthusiatic medtech engineer. He became very interested in medicine at an early age: “As a child, I actually wanted to be a neurosurgeon. I was captivated by the whole idea, but it turned out to involve too much learning by heart,” he admits with a smile. He decided to take a different path in the medical field and become an engineer instead: “It’s important to me that my work helps people,” he reveals. After graduating from high school, he won a scholarship to study engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany. There, Dahmani eventually gained a doctorate for his work on the use of magnetic nanoparticles in medicine.
Dahmani started his professional career with the Siemens Graduate Program (SGP), which aims to prepare young talents for a career at Siemens. Next came a series of different international posts in innovation, collaboration management, research and development (R&D), and market development at Siemens Healthineers, focusing on medical imaging solutions. He spent time working in France, Singapore, and Japan as well as Germany. Dahmani now leads the Technology & Innovation department at the Mechatronic Products division. He and his team of eight conduct research in a number of areas, including robot-assisted solutions for hospital workflows.
Robotics in Healthcare: Triumphs, Trials, and the Road Ahead
In this talk, we will explore the transformative impact of robotics in healthcare, highlighting its most significant achievements, notable failures, and the challenges that lie ahead. From surgical robots revolutionizing precision in the operating room to robotic exoskeletons aiding in-patient rehabilitation, we will delve into the innovations that have reshaped medical practices. We will also examine the setbacks and limitations faced by these technologies, providing a balanced view of their current state. Finally, we will discuss the future challenges and opportunities for robotics in healthcare, envisioning a path towards more advanced and integrated solutions.
Hightech Summit Session 4: Future Medical Robotics
Living robots represent a new frontier in engineering materials for robotic systems, incorporating biological living cells and synthetic materials into their design. These bio-hybrid robots are dynamic and intelligent, potentially harnessing living matter’s capabilities, such as growth, regeneration, morphing, biodegradation, and environmental adaptation.
Such attributes position bio-hybrid devices as a transformative force in robotics development, promising enhanced dexterity, adaptive behaviors, sustainable production, robust performance, and environmental stewardship. Nature’s musculoskeletal design can act as an inspiration for both artificial and living robots. We will explore recent advances in artificial electrohydraulic musculoskeletal robots, which employ electrohydraulic actuators to produce lifelike muscle contractions and adaptive motions, as demonstrated in our recent work published in Nature Communications. We will also discuss our breakthroughs in vision-controlled inkjet printing for robotics from our Nature paper, as well as xolographic biofabrication techniques for biohybrid swimmers presented at RoboSoft.
Additionally, I’ll share insights from our computational optimization of musculoskeletal systems featured at Humanoids. Together, these projects showcase how musculoskeletal, bio-hybrid, and computational techniques are opening new frontiers in robotics interaction and manipulation.
Robert Katzschmann is an Assistant Professor of Robotics at ETH Zurich, where he leads the Soft Robotics Lab, focusing on the design and fabrication of soft, musculoskeletal, and bio-hybrid robots that safely interact with humans and the environment. His work draws inspiration from biological systems, using soft, compliant materials to create lifelike, adaptive robots. Before joining ETH Zurich, Robert served as the Chief Technology Officer at Dexai Robotics, where he led robotic automation projects for commercial kitchens, and as a Senior Applied Scientist at Amazon Robotics. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2018, where his research on soft robotics garnered media attention from outlets like The New York Times and BBC. He holds a Diplom-Ingenieur degree from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. Robert’s contributions to the robotics community include serving as an editor for leading journals and conferences such as IJRR, ICRA, IROS, RoboSoft, and RSS. He is also a guest editor for Science Advances and Advanced Intelligent Systems. His lab is affiliated with the Center for Robotics (RobotX), the ETH AI Center, and the ETH Max Planck Institute Center for Learning Systems, promoting collaboration in advancing robotics technologies.
Creating Life-like Robots: From Musculoskeletal Designs to Biohybrid Innovations
Living robots represent a new frontier in engineering materials for robotic systems, incorporating biological living cells and synthetic materials into their design. These bio-hybrid robots are dynamic and intelligent, potentially harnessing living matter’s capabilities, such as growth, regeneration, morphing, biodegradation, and environmental adaptation.
Such attributes position bio-hybrid devices as a transformative force in robotics development, promising enhanced dexterity, adaptive behaviors, sustainable production, robust performance, and environmental stewardship. Nature’s musculoskeletal design can act as an inspiration for both artificial and living robots. We will explore recent advances in artificial electrohydraulic musculoskeletal robots, which employ electrohydraulic actuators to produce lifelike muscle contractions and adaptive motions, as demonstrated in our recent work published in Nature Communications. We will also discuss our breakthroughs in vision-controlled inkjet printing for robotics from our Nature paper, as well as xolographic biofabrication techniques for biohybrid swimmers presented at RoboSoft.
Additionally, I’ll share insights from our computational optimization of musculoskeletal systems featured at Humanoids. Together, these projects showcase how musculoskeletal, bio-hybrid, and computational techniques are opening new frontiers in robotics interaction and manipulation.
Hightech Summit Session 4: Future Medical Robotics
Session-Chair
„Future of Health” wird von Prof. Cristina Piazza, Assistenzprofessorin am Lehrstuhl für Anwendungen in der Medizin (TU München), als Session Chair moderiert.
Technologien haben das Potenzial, Menschen zu unterstützen und unsere Lebensqualität zu verbessern. Es ist jedoch unerlässlich, Technologien so zu gestalten, dass der Nutzen für die Vielen und nicht für die Wenigen im Vordergrund steht. Fragen der sozialen Gerechtigkeit und Gleichberechtigung müssen in den Mittelpunkt der Technologieentwicklung rücken, insbesondere in Bereichen wie KI und Robotik. Dazu müssen wir die interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Sozialwissenschaften und der KI-Forschung fördern und soziale, ethische und politische Fragestellungen bereits bei der Technologieentwicklung integrieren.
Session-Chair
„Strategy and Business” wird von Prof. Alin Albu-Schäffer, DLR – Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt: Institut für Robotik und Mechatronik, als Session Chair moderiert.
Technologien haben das Potenzial, Menschen zu unterstützen und unsere Lebensqualität zu verbessern. Es ist jedoch unerlässlich, Technologien so zu gestalten, dass der Nutzen für die Vielen und nicht für die Wenigen im Vordergrund steht. Fragen der sozialen Gerechtigkeit und Gleichberechtigung müssen in den Mittelpunkt der Technologieentwicklung rücken, insbesondere in Bereichen wie KI und Robotik. Dazu müssen wir die interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Sozialwissenschaften und der KI-Forschung fördern und soziale, ethische und politische Fragestellungen bereits bei der Technologieentwicklung integrieren.