Peter Kazanzides

Peter Kazanzides
Johns Hopkins University
Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics
120 Hackerman Hall
3400 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

Phone: 410 516 5590
Fax: 410 516 5553
E-mail: [email protected]

Lab webpage: SMARTS Lab

My research activities are in computer-assisted surgery and space telerobotics, which share the common themes of human/machine interfaces to keep the human in the loop, real-time sensing to account for uncertainty, and system engineering to enable deployment in the real world.  Surgical robotics requires a partnership between man and machine that must operate in an unstructured environment with constraints on visibility, accessibility, and sterility.  My research has focused on the integration of information from various sources, such as preoperative and intraoperative imaging and force sensing, to address these challenges.  I have also applied these techniques to space robots; specifically, for a telerobotic system for satellite servicing, which is subject to time delays of 2-7 seconds.

In 1989, while developing a robot for orthopaedic surgery, I pioneered the use of force-controlled guidance as a surgical robot interface.  More recently, I have been applying virtual fixtures as guidance and safety constraints and have performed research in augmented reality interfaces for both medical and space applications.  My current research interests include the integration of real-time imaging, such as video, ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging, to enable robotic assistance in more challenging environments, such as minimally invasive surgery and microsurgery.  I am also exploring the use of sensor fusion, incorporating different tracking technologies such as electromagnetic, optical, and inertial, to improve the robustness of tracking technology for applications in robotics, surgical navigation, and augmented reality.

These applications have also motivated me to define and develop enabling systems and architectures.  A surgical robot, with associated information sources, generally requires concurrent processing, with low-latency exchange of information.  My research involves the application of component-based software engineering concepts to provide a uniform programming model that spans from multi-threaded systems to multi-process and multi-processor systems. This research is embodied in the open-source cisst libraries and Surgical Assistant Workstation (SAW) software.  As a service to the research community, I have disseminated the hardware and software to control research da Vinci Systems at more than 30 institutions around the world, with additional sites in process.