Toward Intelligent Remotely Assisted Manipulation
Tasks
Mechanical Engineering Professor Long Wang
Assistant Professor in
Mechanical Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology
ABSTRACT
Robotic manipulation has
advanced numerous application domains such as home, manufacturing, warehouses,
surgery, and space. Yet it is still challenging to perform complex and delicate
manipulation tasks interacting with a partially known environment. In this
talk, I will present work in three aspects towards more intelligent manipulation:
robot modeling, assisted telemanipulation, and remotely assisted free-flying
manipulation.
Surgical soft continuum
robots allow for deep access to the anatomy while providing inherent safety.
However, there is no modeling and calibration framework for these robots in the
literature. I will present such modeling framework as a prerequisite that
enables autonomous features.
Interaction forces are
important in manipulation tasks. Currently, in minimally invasive surgery,
surgeons rely on only visual feed, losing the force interactions with the
anatomy as they would have in open surgery. I will present a model-mediated
telemanipulation framework that allows surgeons to interact with the anatomy
through haptic virtual fixture laws.
In the last part, I will
present my postdoctoral work at Columbia on a space robotics project aiming at
ground-space teleoperated manipulation tasks using assistive free-flyers. In
addition, I will discuss the new directions and work-in progress started at
Stevens Institute of Technology.
BIOGRAPHY
Long Wang, who joined
Stevens Institute of Technology in August 2019, is an assistant professor of
mechanical engineering. His research interest lies in modeling, sensing, and
control of robots, with a focus on building robots and intelligent machines to
assist effort in challenging environments.
The applications that
Long is most interested in include robotic surgery and remotely operated
manipulation tasks. These applications are embedded with research problems such
as novel compliant robot mechanisms, advanced control algorithms for robot
interactions with environments, and human-robot collaborative interfaces for
surgeons or operators.
Prior to joining Stevens,
Long was a postdoctoral researcher in the Robotic Manipulation and Mobility Lab
at Columbia University, and before that, he was a research assistant in the
Advanced Robotics and Mechanism Applications Lab. Long received Ph.D. in
Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, and he received B.S. and
M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University and Columbia University, respectively.