MURAB

MURAB

ALTAIR research projects

MURAB

MRI and Ultrasound Robotic Assisted Biopsy

Timing

From 2016-01-01
To 2020-06-30

Granted by 

The MURAB project has the ambition to revolutionise the way cancer screening and muscle diseases are researched for patients and has the potential to save lives by early detection and treatment.
The project intends to create a new paradigm in which, the precision of great medical imaging modalities like MRI and Ultrasound are combined with the precision of robotics in order to target the right place in the body. This will be achieved by identifying a target using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and then use a robot with an ultrasound (US) probe to match the images and navigate to the right location.
This will be done thanks to a new innovative technique, which will be developed in the project and called Tissue Active Slam (TAS) which will use different techniques and modalities, like elastography, in order to cope with the deformation of the tissues. Such a procedure has the potential to drastically improve the clinical workflow and save lives by ensuring an exact targeting of (small) lesions, which are visible under MRI and not under US. Technologies developed within MURAB also have the potential to improve other clinical procedures. Clinically, two applications will be targeted and validated in the project: breast cancer diagnostics (MUW and ZGT) and muscle disease diagnostics (UMCN). Considering the potential for the market, industrial partners are involved with expertise in the delivery of safe robotics components and applications (KUKA), as well as with great knowledge and ambition in pushing innovation to the medical market (SIEMENS).

One in Eight women will have to deal with Breast cancer in their lifetime, early diagnosis is very important to have a better quality of life and life expectancy. MURAB has the potential to save lives by early detection and treatment.

Prof. dr.Ir Stefano Stramiglioli
MURAB Project leader

ALTAIR People involved

Diego Dall'Alba

Diego Dall'Alba

Assistant Professor

Martina Doppio

Martina Doppio

Communication Manager

Bogdan Maris

Bogdan Maris

Assistant Professor

Eleonora Tagliabue

Eleonora Tagliabue

Alumni 2022

ALTAIR projects

Altair research is carried on with the help of EU and Italian grants, discover our research projects!

Eurosurge

Eurosurge

ALTAIR research projects

eurosurge PROJECT

Timing

From 2011-10-01
To 2013-12-31

Computer and Robot Assisted Surgery (CRAS) is an area receiving broad attention worldwide, because of its strong potential to achieve new levels of healthcare. In Europe, the robotics and the cognitive science communities have been independently pursuing research in this field, making significant, but fragmented contributions. Furthermore, strong manufacturers of surgical instruments are present in Europe.

 

The goal of EuRoSurge is to facilitate the development of new products and their integration into surgical robots endowed with cognitive capabilities, thus establishing the new field of Cognitive Robotic Surgery.

ALTAIR projects

Altair research is carried on with the help of EU and Italian grants, discover our research projects!

ISUR

ISUR

ALTAIR research projects

i-sur

 

Intelligent SURgical Robot

Timing

From 2011-04
To 2014-08

Website

www.isur.eu

I-SUR Project develops general methods for cognitive surgical robots capable of combining sensing, dexterity and cognitive capabilities to carry out autonomously simple surgical actions, such as puncturing, cutting and suturing.

Robotic surgery is now a standard for many surgical procedures and we are looking at what will be ronotic surgery in ten years from now.

I-SUR addresses issues that will be important in the future of robotic surgery, as how we can automatize certain parts of procedures done with the robot.

Prof. Paolo Fiorini - Project Coordinator

ALTAIR projects

Altair research is carried on with the help of EU and Italian grants, discover our research projects!

Safros

Safros

ALTAIR research projects

safros PROJECT

SAFety in RObotic Surgery

Timing

From 2010-01-01
To 2013-03-31

This proposal addresses the development of technologies for patient safety in robotic surgery. We define patient safety metrics for surgical procedures and then develop methods that abide by safety requirements, formulated in terms of our metrics. We aim at demonstrating that a properly controlled robotic surgery carried out in accordance to our safety criteria can improve the level of patient safety currently achievable by traditional surgery. 

ALTAIR projects

Altair research is carried on with the help of EU and Italian grants, discover our research projects!

Accurobas

Accurobas

ALTAIR research projects

accurobas PROJECT

Accurate Robot Assistant

Timing

From 1 October 2006
To 30 Septembre 2009

The main objective of the project is to develop an innovative and universal robotic assistant system to support a human in dextrous manipulation. For this reason we address methods to increase accuracy for lightweight compliant robotic systems during surgical procedures with human interaction. The approach focuses on adaptive control by exhibiting rich sensory-motor skills and multi-sensory measurement to distinctly increase the system accuracy.

To handle a complex working field a robot system needs a detailed description of its environment. A natural environment is usually fuzzy and continuously changing. Thus it is a major task within this project to find a way to model such environments with sufficient precision as far as possible. This has an impact on planning a task since the model might be strongly incomplete. Available plan descriptions fail in this case. Therefore it is crucial to include a method to describe uncertainties in the planning.

An advanced and light-weight robot arm which exploits a redundant structure is one component of the proposed architecture. This allows null-space motion enabling the robot’s joints to be reconfigured while the position and orientation of the instrument remains unchanged. Basically, the advanced robot arm includes a complex sensor system and its control devices, that is suitable for a wide range of humanoid operations and especially complex surgical procedures. The system is based on an open and modular architecture. For real operations an arrangement of at least three arms is necessary. Furthermore, the redundancy in the sensory system is necessary to provide a collision avoiding arm control which leads to a more flexible OR setup. As the robot is light-weight it can be easily mounted or removed by user during an operation. As highly demanding demonstration activities we will cope with laser osteotomy and palpation.

ALTAIR projects

Altair research is carried on with the help of EU and Italian grants, discover our research projects!