Skip to main content

Surgical simulation & robotics

Surgical simulation & robotics

Soft-tissue simulation, haptic interaction, and ROS-based research benches for surgical robotics.

Simulating soft tissue in real time, under a surgeon’s hand, with physics that feels correct — and then connecting that simulation to a robotic manipulator that can replay or assist a procedure — is one of the hardest standing problems in surgical computing.

This theme covers MESH|Lab’s work on soft-tissue simulation, haptic interaction, and ROS-based research benches that bring those simulations together with real robots for surgical training and investigation.

What we build

  • Slicer ↔ SOFA integrations that bring deformable-tissue simulation directly into the planning environment surgeons already use.
  • Demonstrators that put Slicer to work in simulation and robotics environments, combining SlicerSOFA with SlicerROS2.

Why it matters

A surgical robot that does not know what it is touching cannot be trusted with autonomy. A simulation that does not connect to a robot cannot be evaluated against real motion. Both halves are necessary for the next generation of computer-assisted procedures, and both benefit from being open enough to compare across labs.

See the Projects page for the current portfolio under this theme.