Stroke is the 2nd leading cause of death worldwide. In ischemic stroke (the most common), a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain and thus prevents the neural tissue from getting oxygen and nutrients. We are working on a teleoperated neuroendovascular robotic system whose aim is to assist the doctor in performing the medical procedure mechanical thrombectomy (“clot extraction”). Teleoperation is interesting for several reasons: 1) The procedure is currently performed under x-rays which are harmful for the body. Therefore, we would like to enable the doctor to operate from a distance; 2) Teleoperation allows for shared control strategies (benefitting from robotic precision and human experience/supervision); 3) With a teleoperated system we can improve the safety by providing an amplified force feedback to the operator.
In this context, we are looking for a master thesis student who will improve the basic teleoperation which is currently implemented on the system by adding reliable force feedback and implementing different teleoperation modes. Then the implementations will have to be tested with our collaborators from the Geneva University Hospitals in an in vitro setup.
Requirements:
Project is 70% programming, 30% experimentation + validation
C/C++ Programming
Experience with Qt and multithreading is preferred
Knowledge in haptics
Contact: [email protected]
Contact
If none of the projects suit you but if you are interested in surgical robotics in general, please feel free to contact us to discuss potential opportunities.
Evgenia Roussinova ([email protected])