People

Research Interests

• Robotic kinematics, dynamics and controls
• Medical applications of robotics
• Image guidance of minimally invasive surgery

Current Research

Professor Dupont conducts research in image-guided minimally invasive surgery. This work is interdisciplinary, drawing from kinematics, control systems, robotics, acoustics and solid mechanics. Topics of interest include design of medical robots and instruments, modeling tool-tissue interaction, development of multi-probe or multi-modal imaging techniques for surgical guidance; and teleoperation or automation of instrument motion. His current focus is to develop robotic instruments and imaging technology that can be used to perform complex repairs inside the beating heart. Such surgeries are needed to correct congenital heart defects (the most common birth defect) in the fetal and pediatric heart as well as to repair the effects of heart disease in older patients.

Selected Recent Publications

P. Sears, P. Dupont "Inverse Kinematics of Concentric Tube Steerable Needles" IEEE 2007 International Conference on Robotics and Automation Rome, Italy: 10-14 April (2007)

P. Novotny, J. Stoll, N. Vasilyev, P. del Nido, P. Dupont, T. Zickler "GPU based real-time instrument tracking with three-dimensional ultrasound" Medical Image Analysis Vol. 11: 458-464 (2007)

J. Huang, J. Triedman, N. Vasilyev, Y. Suematsu, R. Cleveland, P. Dupont "Imaging Artifacts of Medical Instruments in Ultrasound-Guided Interventions" Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine Vol. 26: 1303-1322 (2007)

P. Sears, P. Dupont "A Steerable Needle Technology Using Curved Concentric Tubes" Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2006) Beijing, China: October 9-15 (2006)