Dr. Camarillo’s laboratory combines mechanics, medicine, and technology to solve clinical problems with medical devices. In this talk, he will describe his lab’s work on two clinically relevant problems of:
- measuring dynamic movements in the lung using the camera image of a bronchoscope, and
- measuring dynamic impact to the head using an instrumented mouthguard.
The ultimate goal in the lung is to autonomously drive a robotic bronchoscope, thereby increasing global access for cancer screening. The ultimate goal in the brain is to uncover the mechanism of mild traumatic brain injury and to prevent injury through protective equipment.
The device solutions to both of these problems leverage soft robotic technologies: a soft flexible bronchoscope in the lung and a soft folding shock absorber for the head.
The computational solution to the lung problem involves deep learning of anatomical images, and in the brain finite element models of the soft tissue. These technologies are mostly at the pre-clinical phase but Dr. Camarillo intends to translate his lab’s scientific findings to clinical use in the future.