Robotics

David Braun, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for foundational research in mechanically adaptive robotics. His CAREER project, “Mechanically Adaptive, Energetically Passive Robotics,” will enable the creation of new-generation industrial robots, transportation systems, and devices that can assist and augment humans. The five-year, $600,000 grant will support work on robot... Read More

A collaboration between international and Vanderbilt University researchers is helping to update a tried-and-true medical technology for the 21st century. The development of an intelligent and autonomous Magnetic Flexible Endoscope holds the promise of making colonoscopies safer, less painful, more widely available and less expensive. The article “Enabling the future of colonoscopy with intelligent and... Read More

Removing part of a kidney with minimally invasive robotic surgery rather than an entire kidney when operating for smaller tumors is often best for patients from a recovery and health standpoint, but many surgeons hesitate to do so because of the complexity of the robotic partial nephrectomy procedure. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have developed a surgical robot designed to perform brain surgery by entering through the cheek instead of the skull. Read More

The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt will begin using a new state-of-the-art automated robotic system in June to prepare intravenous and single-use syringe medications for inpatients, making it the first children’s hospital in Tennessee to implement the technology. Read More

Recent advances in robotics technology make it possible to create prosthetics that can duplicate the natural movement of human legs which promises to dramatically improve the mobility of lower-limb amputees. Read More

Providing surgical robots with a new kind of machine intelligence that significantly extends their capabilities and makes them much easier and more intuitive for surgeons to operate is the goal of a major new grant announced as part of the National Robotics Initiative. Read More

In the foreseeable future, robots will be sticking steerable needles in your brain to remove blood clots; capsule robots will be crawling up your colon as a painless replacement for the colonoscopy; and ultra-miniaturized snake robots will remove tumors from your bladder and other body cavities. Read More

 Why you should worry about your child’s chronic tummy aches  See a robotic arm that could help save lives  And why kids love a new health care app All this and more in VUCast, Vanderbilt’s online newscast. Watch now. [vucastblurb]… Read More

An interdisciplinary team of autism experts and mechanical engineers at Vanderbilt University has created an interactive robot that can help children with autism learn. NAO (pronounced “now”) is the little robot “front man” for an elaborate system of cameras, sensors and computers designed specifically to help young children learn how… Read More

An interdisciplinary collaboration of engineers and doctors at Vanderbilt and Columbia Universities has designed a robotic microsurgery system specifically designed to treat bladder cancer, the sixth most common form of cancer in the U.S. and the most expensive to treat. Read More