In this compelling and impactful keynote session, Rich Mahoney, Vice President Research at Intuitive, the pioneering developer of advanced robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery, will discuss the opportunity for healthcare robotics solutions to expand access to quality healthcare, with corresponding improvements in outcomes and quality of life. He will also highlight the special role and responsibility of engineers to achieve these important goals.
In this keynote presentation, Adam Sachs, CEO and Co-founder of Vicarious Surgical, will discuss the ways in which the Vicarious Surgical robotic system is driving the field of minimally invasive surgery forward. He will also describe some of the challenges and opportunities the company faced as it set out to innovate in the healthcare space. Sachs will explain why the field needed a push, the innovations the Vicarious Surgical robotic system brings to patient care, and the unique, collaborative approach Vicarious Surgical is taking to the design and development phase of its work.
For people with disabilities, mobile manipulators can provide many meaningful benefits. Yet to date, fully capable mobile manipulation systems have been too large, heavy and expensive to be practical. In this engaging session, Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Co-founder of Hello Robot, a provider of mobile manipulation systems, will describe the R&D process that resulted in Hello Robot’s Stretch RE1, a compact and lightweight mobile manipulator that achieves a new level of affordability. Healthcare-related work by the growing community of researchers and developers using the Stretch system will also be highlighted.
Designing a robot arm for a medical application presents many challenges, one being the correct design of the joint. To balance performance, cost, and mass inside a specified a volume, choices (and compromises) must be made. Making the correct decisions about the primary components in robotic joints – motors, encoders, gears and drives – results in joint designs that correctly balance performance, cost, mass and volume. In this session, Novanta’s Mark Holcomb will review the critical joint components, highlighting the unique properties of each that allow for a successful joint design. He will highlight the key motor, encoder and drive features to look for when designing a joint for a medical application.
For healthcare robotics products, accelerated product development is critical to achieve faster time to market. Through virtual development, next generation robotics systems can be developed quickly and tested with high fidelity. Further integration of virtual development methods into the regulatory process with ASME V&V40 and FDA guidance allows for more confidence to grow with these methods in the medical device industry.
In this session, Stress Engineering Services’ Douglas Marriott will describe how virtual development methods and machine learning can be applied for the development of healthcare robotics systems, including usability evaluation by incorporating augmented reality as part of the development process. He will also detail how the use of virtual development environments be transitioned into a digital twin of the in-field digital environment allowing real-time monitoring, complaint monitoring, in-field training, data collection, and pushing further development updates.
While the role of robotics in healthcare has been fairly well established over the last few decades, recent advancements in technology and social acceptance of collaborative applications has accelerated the development of new medical uses and adoption. Now, robots are supporting a wide variety of healthcare applications ranging from rehabilitation to surgery and on to cancer treatments. In fact, in some segments of the healthcare industry, lacking a robotic system could is a competitive disadvantage. But what does the today’s opportunity landscape look like for this industry? And how will it change with the current health crisis?
This presentation will examine the modern state of healthcare robotics, including the different technologies and current cultural drivers that are pushing for wider adoption. The speaker will draw on his experiences in the industry to provide the audience with both a detailed history of how robots have supported medical applications over the years, and how he envisions the sector evolving over time. Attendees will be provided with actionable advice they can use to identify opportunities in the healthcare robotics space, and how to prepare for the coming years.
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For registration or logistic questions, contact [email protected]
Courtney Nagle
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440-523-1685