Endorobotics

Dr. Luigi Manfredi is currently Principal Investigator and Baxter Fellow at the School of Medicine, University of Dundee, United Kingdom. His research laboratory investigates soft materials for smart endorobots for intervention in the gastrointestinal tract. He received his MSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2001 and PhD in Biorobotics Science and Engineering from a joint program between the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2008. He has collaborated with several industries, specifically on the design and fabrication of mechatronic systems for the digital control of robotic platforms. He has designed and implemented miniaturized digital hardware for the digital control of multi-linked and flexible bio-inspired robots and has been involved in several European projects. He won the prestigious Surgical Innovation Award sponsored by Covidien (Baltimore, 2013) and the runner-up prize for the Emerging Technology Award (Boston, 2016), both at the SAGES Congress, United States.

1. Introduction
2. Robotics in medicine
3. Clinical applications 
4. Biological systems
5. Rigid versus soft materials
6. Smart materials for actuators
7. Flexible and stretchable sensors
8. Control strategies and analytical models for flexible devices
9. Haptic interfaces
10. Electronic design for hardware control
11. Vision systems
12. Machine learning for imaging
13. Simulators
14. Augmented reality
15. Energy efficiency and power management
16. Wireless and wired communication
17. Manufacturing process for miniaturised robots
18. Project management
19. Health care system and cost
20. Medical regulations and product commercialisation
21. Future trends