MEMS Seminar: Nabil Simaan, "Advances in Robotics for Microsurgery, Sensing, Training, and Skills Assessment"

Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science (MEMS), Fall 2025 Speaker Series welcomes Dr. Nabil Simaan, professor of Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, to present "Advances in Robotics for Microsurgery, Sensing, Training, and Skills Assessment." Abstract: Robotics can be used for manipulation augmentation, sensory augmentation, and for surgical skills training and assessment. In this talk, the speaker will cover recent works by his group on addressing challenges in retinal microsurgery for image-guided subretinal delivery of therapeutics and gene therapies. The talk will focus on technical challenges and the approach for addressing co-manipulation and safety constraints while leveraging information from the robot and optical coherence tomography. A co-registered custom OCT probe is used for defining variable admittance manipulation constraints for enhanced safety and precision is presented. A framework for rapid image segmentation and robot-informed segmentation and tracking allows enhanced human-robot partnership with robustness to OCT image noise and difficulties in real-time feature tracking in OCT image space. The second part of the talk will cover another effort related to use of robotics for training surgeons in under resourced countries. The system being developed is part of an international effort for developing solutions that can accelerate surgical skills assessment and training for minimally invasive surgery. A system comprised of custom haptic devices coupled with real-time simulation environment for cholecystectomy is presented. The simulation environment leverages machine-learning to accelerate deformable tissue modeling and haptics in real time. The design process for the haptic devices for this system will also be discussed. Time permitting, the speaker will touch upon other projects in his lab related to micro-manipulation and steerable micro-catheters for endovascular navigation. BIO: NABIL SIMAAN (Ph.D, 2002 Technion, Israel) is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science and Otolaryngology at Vanderbilt University. He has served as an Editor for IEEE ICRA, associate editor for IEEE TRO, Associate Editor for ASME JMR, and editorial board member for Robotica and a co-chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Surgical Robotics. His research interests include parallel robotics, continuum robotics & design of new robotic systems for dexterous and image-guided surgical robotics.