Commonsense Reasoning in Surgical Robotics

Commonsense Reasoning in Surgical Robotics

The first doctoral school dedicated to a frontier theme for autonomous robotics.
From 2 to 5 May 2022 in Verona and in hybrid format, registration by 13 April.

We are pleased to announce the Summer school in “Commonsense reasoning in surgical robotics”, which will be held from 2 to 5 May 2022 in hybrid format: the lessons will take place online and at the Department of computer science UNIVR.
This new proposal is the evolution of COSUR summer school on the control of surgical robots and aims to investigate even more specifically the world of autonomous surgical robotics in its most advanced developments.

The school will bring together national and international experts to discuss issues related to commonsense reasoning in autonomous robotics – that is, all those innate skills and concepts that are natural to a human being, but must be taught to a robot in order to act independently. A pioneering topic for the scientific community, which has recently started to be discussed discussed thanks to the progress achieved in the technical field.

The school is characterized by a strong interdisciplinary connotation and includes specialists in robotics, artificial intelligence, medicine, ethics and law. Given the complexity of the topic, we strongly believe that only an integrated approach will to foster a broad and articulated vision on a horizon that is still little known. The teaching will includes lectures but also collaborative workshops and group activities to stimulate interaction between the participants.

Understanding how to describe, represent and learn innate human abilities is an aspect of great importance in developing autonomous agents that are robust and reliable.

Prof. Paolo Fiorini

Director of the ALTAIR Robotics Laboratory

The school is open to Italian and foreign PhD students and researchers in the following disciplines: robotics, artificial intelligence, medicine, ethics, law and natural language processing.

Registration is open until April 13, which will be followed by a selection of the applications received. The participation fee is 50 Euros, except for affiliates of the Verona university, for which participation is free. Attendance in person is strongly recommended.

Program, teachers and methods of participation are available at this link.
Partners: ATLAS Project – AuTonomous intraLuminAl Surgery, ARS Project – Autonomous Robotic Surgery and UNIVR Computer Science Department.

Robotics Goes PRISMA – a seminar with Prof. Bruno Siciliano (UNINA)

Robotics Goes PRISMA – a seminar with Prof. Bruno Siciliano (UNINA)

Date: Friday 11 March 2022
Time: 16:00
Place: Aula Verde, Dip. Informatica
Speaker: Prof. Bruno Siciliano – PRISMA Lab
Department of Electrical Engineering & Information Technology – University of Naples Federico II

Contact Person: P. Fiorini

ABSTRACT

The PRISMA Lab www.prisma.unina.it has been engaged in robotics research at University of Naples Federico II for more than 30 years. This talk will survey our most remarkable achievements in seven research areas where robot manipulation and control challenges are found: grasping and manipulation, handling and manipulation, dynamic manipulation, aerial manipulation, interaction with deformable objects, human–robot interaction, and haptic shared control.

BIO

To present Bruno Siciliano, Professor of Robotics and Director of ICAROS Center at University of Naples Federico II, and Past President of IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, one cannot overlook what is his background: the city of Naples and the reckless passion for Napoli soccer team. It then happens that the background comes to the fore and becomes for the robotics expert at an international level a turning point. Like when, having earned his PhD degree, he decided to build his academic future in his city and for his city, declining a faculty position at a prestigious American university, (also) because of the football faith that has always accompanied him in the team’s highs (those were the times of Maradona) and lows. His book Robotics is among the most adopted texts in universities around the world, even though when he talks about his academic achievements there is the impressive Springer Handbook of Robotics, the reference manual for robotics at international level, edited with Professor Oussama Khatib, which he defines as “the most exciting professional experience of my life”. A work of coordination of over 200 renowned researchers, with the goal (fulfilled) of offering a unique tool to the scientific community of robotics and beyond. His research group at PRISMA Lab has had more than 20 projects funded by the European Union for a total of 18 million euros in the last 15 years, including an Advanced Grant from the RoDyMan, an acronym for “Robotic Dynamic Manipulation”, a robot capable of replicating the movements of a pizza maker. In terms of scientific research, it constituted the challenge of creating an automaton capable of manipulating deformable, elastic, non-solid objects, such as water and flour dough. “Keep the gradient” is the motto that Siciliano invented, meaning a constant search for new ideas and new solutions. A hymn to complexity to capture challenges and opportunities always in the name of the art of work & play, as stated in his passionate TEDx Talk.

 

More details are available at http://wpage.unina.it/sicilian/ and https://www.ipr.kit.edu/english/staff_3343.php

Cognitive robotics and embedded AI for minimally invasive surgery  – a seminar with Prof Franziska Mathis-Ullrich (KIT)

Cognitive robotics and embedded AI for minimally invasive surgery – a seminar with Prof Franziska Mathis-Ullrich (KIT)

Date: Friday 11 March 2022
Time: 11:00
Place: Aula Verde, Dip. Informatica
Speaker: Prof Franziska Mathis-Ullrich -Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Contact Person: P. Fiorini

ABSTRACT

While human interaction remains key to a caring treatment, medical robotics holds the potential to improve surgical processes through enabling scaling of forces and actuation, providing safe and individual treatments to patients, and allowing for efficient use of health care personnel and resources. Machine learning algorithms and standardization of processes can increase the quality of medical diagnosis and treatments, particularly when analyzing large quantities of data. Technical and robotic systems can thus support the medical staff in all steps of a medical process.
This talk introduces several assistive robotic systems for minimally invasive surgical procedures being researched at the Health Robotics and Automation Lab at KIT, Germany. On one hand, we will discuss steerable flexible robotic tools for medical applications that require delicate tissue handling. On the other hand, cognitive robotic surgeons and augmented reality support in the operation room are presented for application in laparoscopy and neurosurgery.

Source: ClicKIT Magazine

BIO

Franziska Mathis-Ullrich is Assistant Professor for Medical Robotics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. Her primary research focus is on minimally invasive and cognition controlled robotic systems and embedded machine learning with emphasis on applications in surgery. She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in mechanical engineering and robotics in 2009 and 2012 and obtained her Ph.D. in 2017 in Microrobotics from ETH Zurich, respectively. Since 2019, she has been an Assistant Professor with the Health Robotics and Automation Laboratory at KIT. Prof. Mathis-Ullrich is vice-president of the German Society for Computer- and Robot-assisted Surgery (CURAC) and has received the IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award in Medical Robotics (2014), the IEEE BioRob Best Student Paper Award (2016) and won twice with her team the first prize of the ICRA Microassembly Challenge (2014 & 2015). Furthermore, she made it onto the prestigious Forbes “30 under 30” list (2017).

Workshop at ICAR 2021

Workshop at ICAR 2021

December 7, 2021 – remotely held – originally Ljubljana, SLO

Workshop on Low cost medical and surgical robotics

at the 20th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2021)

Organizer’s message

Medical and surgical robotics are one of the fastest growing sector of service robotics, yielding important medical advances and great economic returns to the investors. However, despite the impressive growth rate, the actual numbers of robot-assisted procedures and their impact are still very small in the medical field: robotic surgical interventions account for only the 0.05% of the total number of major surgeries done every year worldwide, and no clear medical benefit has emerged in most robot-assisted procedures with respect to Minimally Invasive Surgical (MIS) procedures.

We believe the reasons for this are primarily two: the huge cost of the devices that prevent their widespread usage and the lack of diversified devices that can be used in lower cost procedures. In short, both reasons can be related to the high cost of medical robotics since it prevents smaller hospitals to use robots in their clinical practice and limits their applications to high cost procedures that guarantees the proper cost recovery.

In this workshop we want to explore the difficulties and the benefits of developing low cost medical robotic devices that can guarantee top performance at a fraction of the cost of current devices. The difficulties to achieve this goal are many, from the high cost of certification and experimentation to the marginal performance of low cost components. Thus, new algorithms need to be developed to achieve high performance from components derived from mass production products, and new certification procedures could be proposed to the notifiedbodies. Of course, if this approach will be successful, we could finally see robots integrated in all medical procedures.

 

Paolo Fiorini and Pietro Valdastri

Registrations

To register to the workshop sessions (morning and/or afternoon), please fill in the contact form at the link below, and you will later receive the access link.

Programme

Workshop on Low cost medical and surgical robotics

CET Time

• 10am – 10.10am Welcome and Introduction

• 10.10am – 10.30am David Jayne, Leeds Teaching Hospital (Professor Colorectal Surgery)

• 10.30am – 10.50am Peter Culmer, University of Leeds (Associate Professor Mechanical Engineering)

• 10.50am – 11.10am Manish Chauhan, University of York (Lecturer in Medical Engineering)

• 11.10am – 11.30am Tim Horeman, Technical University of Delft (Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering)

• 11.30am – 11.35am Short break

• 11.35am – 12.00pm Round Table

• 12.00pm – 12.30pm Draft of a white paper & Conclusion

The ICAR-2021 logo is designed by Jadran Lenarčič, is inspired by the history of the city of Ljubljana. discover more

Workshop “Embodied AI in robotic surgery: Outcomes of the EU funded SARAS project”

Organized by Riccardo Muradore, Marcello Bonfe, Cristian Secchi, Francesco Setti, Elettra Oleari.

Agenda and (free) registration link here

ODINO Open Week

ODINO Open Week

Odino Open week

Dal 22 al 24 settembre l’Officina di Innovazione si presenta alla città 

È tutto pronto nel Laboratorio di robotica Odino Verona in vista dell’inaugurazione ufficiale di venerdì 24 settembre. Ad anticipare il taglio del nastro degli spazi di via Santa Teresa, 12, nell’area degli ex magazzini generali, due giornate di attivitàdedicate alle scuole e un inspirational talk online, mercoledì 22 alle 18, rivolto alla cittadinanza sul tema della robotica e delle nuove tecnologie.

L’inaugurazione sarà venerdì 24 settembre, alle 11, alla presenza di Olivia Guaraldo, delegata del rettore al Public Engagement, Alessandro Mazzucco, presidente della Fondazione Cariverona, e Paolo Fiorini, delegato del rettore alla Ricerca, docente di Robotica nel dipartimento di Informatica e responsabile del progetto Odino.

L’Officina d’Innovazione Odino Verona, gestita dall’università di Verona in collaborazione con Verona Fablab, è un laboratorio di robotica all’avanguardia fornito di robot educativi e strumentazione tecnologica in grado di simulare contesti di automazione industriale e manifatturiera in un ambiente di apprendimento dinamico, stimolante e sicuro. Comau è partner didattico e tecnologico, per la dotazione di robot e.DO, progettati con finalità formative.

Officine d’Innovazione è un progetto nato dalla sinergia tra università di Verona, Comune di Soave e Fondazione Safe, Security and Freedom for Europe, supportati dal Consorzio di Tutela vino Soave e Confindustria Verona, con il contributo di Fondazione Cariverona.

I corsi di formazione Odino in ambito robotico si rivolgono ai ragazzi dai 18 ai 30 anni residenti nel veronese e permettono di sviluppare competenze all’avanguardia per il mondo del lavoro 4.0. Le macchine sono infatti configurabili e in grado di simulare contesti di automazione industriale e manifatturiera permettendo agli studenti di fare esperienza con quello che accade in un’azienda, dalle dinamiche tecniche di catena di montaggio a quelle sociali.

Il laboratorio di robotica si trova in via Santa Teresa, 12 nell’area degli ex magazzini generali, a fianco del neo inaugurato Laboratorio ICE Industrial Computer Engineering dell’università di Verona. Una zona di interesse archeologico industriale in forte rivalutazione destinata a divenire nuovo polo di innovazione tecnologica per la città.

Nel corso dei prossimi anni il laboratorio sarà a disposizione di studenti e giovani per approfondire le tematiche riguardanti il mondo della robotica industriale con l’obiettivo di sperimentare nuovi modelli di apprendimento e nuove tecnologie. Il laboratorio potrà anche diventare un luogo di formazione e riqualificazione professionale per chi vuole affacciarsi a questo mondo.

L’innovazione non è solo a Verona: anche Soave è presente un’Officina Odino, focalizzata sulla formazione nei settori vitivinicolo ed enologico. Inaugurata a settembre 2020, nel prestigioso spazio dell’Ex-Mulino della città, può già contare 8 corsi avviati e più di 120 ragazzi coinvolti.

Modalità di iscrizione e programma completo disponibili sul sito www.progetto-odino.it.

Prenota il tuo posto

 ODINO OPEN WEEK – IL PROGRAMMA

Mercoledì 22/09/2021 | Ore 15-18 Laboratorio Odino, via Santa Teresa 12
RoboIndustry, la tecnologia con i robot: dalle origini della robotica alla programmazione di un robot educativo industriale.
Evento rivolto agli studenti delle scuole superiori.
Partecipa!

Mercoledì 22/09/2021 | Ore 18-19, online.
Inspirational Talk con il professor Igor Pelgreffi: filosofia, etica e nuove tecnologie.
Appuntamento rivolto a curiosi e appassionati di robotica, scienza, filosofia, etica. Igor Pelgreffi è docente di filosofia all’Università di Verona, redattore delle riviste Kaiak A Philosophical Journey, Lo Sguardo – Rivista di Filosofia e “Azimuth”.
Prenota il tuo posto!

Giovedì 23/09/2021 | Ore 15-18, Laboratorio Odino, via Santa Teresa 12
RoboTeaching, la scuola con i robot.
Un incontro dedicato agli insegnanti di qualsiasi materia per scoprire le potenzialità del laboratorio Odino in classe.
Partecipa!

Venerdì 24/09/2021 | Ore 11- 13 Laboratorio Odino, via Santa Teresa 12
Inaugurazione del Laboratorio Odino.
Saluti istituzionali, taglio del nastro e visita del Laboratorio, evento su invito.

Prenota il tuo posto

L’iscrizione serve per ricevere il link via email il giorno prima dell’evento.

COSUR 2020 – Dates Postponed

COSUR 2020 – Dates Postponed

Considering the current international health situation and the recent trend of the pandemic, we are unable to organize the COSUR summer school with the safety and flexibility margins that the uncertain situation imposes.


We have therefore chosen to postpone the school to next winter (tentatively between November 2020 and March 2021), but we are unable to provide new dates at this time.

In the coming months we will constantly monitor the situation and as soon as possible we will update the official page with new dates and detailed instructions. Please also follow our social media channels for prompt updates.

If you need further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

03/08/2020 – The organizing Team.