Telerobotics Demonstration with Howard Jay Chizeck

Telerobotics Demonstration with Howard Jay Chizeck

In this demonstration, some recent advances in telerobots for manipulation will be demonstrated. A telerobot is a robot operated by a human operator, most often from a remote location, through a two way communication link.  Robot surgery devices are telerobots (although the surgeon is nearby). Telerobots can be useful in any situation that is too dangerous for human presence, or too small, or too large or too far away. Telerobots can be used for deep water operations (pollution cleanup, scientific sampling, and resource extraction). They can be used for mine removal or for mining, for firefighting or for human guided tasks in high temperature, chemically hazardous, biohazardous or radioactive situations (such as nuclear reactor cleanup). The robot performs the physical action, but it is directed by a human operator, either completely or with shared autonomy.

Technology permitting (internet connection issues, etc), one arm of a remote surgical robot (in Seattle) will be controlled over an internet link from the conference, with a skype video connection providing viewing of the remote operation. There will also be a short video of very recent results demonstrating the hacking of the control of this surgical robot.

Several short videos of research robots that provide the operator a sense of touch, through the use of haptic rendering (for laser surgery and for underwater manipulation). In addition, a demonstration of this haptic rendering (touching a beating heart) will be available for a ‘hands on’ demonstration.

Howard Jay Chizeck will present the Telerobotics Demonstration on Friday, April 4th at 4:00 PM in the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida.