Dr. Allen Jiang, BS, PhD
Consultant at Auris Surgical Robotics

Email: Allen.Jiang@kcl.ac.uk

Biography

Allen Jiang is a PhD student under the supervision of Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Prokar Dasgupta, and Kaspar Althoefer. He is focused on granular jamming as a variable stiffness mechanism for a miniature snake-like robot for minimally invasive surgeries. Additional research involves impedance control, adaptive robotics in uncertain environments, and pneumatic actuation.

Allen Jiang received his bachelors degree at the University of California, San Diego in aerospace engineering. He has participated in combat robotics competitons including BattleBots and Robogames.

Description of Research

Design and construction of a variable stiffness flexible manipulator for minimally invasive surgeries.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhIHAHmHpow]

Current laparoscopic tools for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) and popular robotic tools, such as the Intuitive da Vinci robot, have straight, rigid arms. While these tools are good and have improved patient recovery times and have reduced patient trauma.

Research Interest

• Medical robotics
• Snake-like robotics
• Flexible manipulators
• Granular jamming
• Pneumatic actuators
• Passive compliance

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fngqx0_tJYc]

Allen’s research is part of the EU FP7 project called STIFF-FLOP.

Publications

Conferences

A. Jiang, T. Aste, P. Dasgupta, K. Althoefer, and T. Nanayakkara, “Granular jamming with hydraulc control,” ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC 2013), Portland, OR, USA, 2013.

A. Jiang, P. Agrawal, K. Althoefer, T. Nanayakkara, P. Dasgupta, , “Bio-inspired connective granular jamming for a robotic limb,”  35th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2013), Osaka, Japan, 2013.

A. Jiang, K. Althoefer, P. Dasgupta, T. Nanayakkara, “The Core-Snake, the variable stiffness laparoscopic camera,” The Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, London, United Kingdom, 2013.

A. Jiang, E. Secco, H. Wurdemann, T. Nanayakkara, P. Dasgupta, K. Athoefer, “Stiffness-controllable octopus-like robot arm for minimally invasive surgery,” 3rd Joint Workshop on New Technologies for Computer/Robot Assisted Surgery (CRAS 2013), Verona, Italy, 2013.

A. Jiang, G. Xynogalas, P. Dasgupta, K. Althoefer, and T. Nanayakkara, “Design of a variable stiffness flexible manipulator with composite granular jamming and membrane coupling,” IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2012), Vilamoura, Portugal, 2012.

A. Jiang, J. Bimbo, S. Goulder, H. Liu, X. Song, and T. Nanayakkara, “Adaptive grip control on an uncertain object”, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2012), Vilamoura, Portugal, 2012.

A. Jiang, K. Althoefer, T. Nanayakkara, and P. Dasgupta, “Granular jamming for minimally invasive surgeries,” 30th World Congress of Endourology and SWL (WCE 2012), Istanbul, Turkey, 2012.

A. Jiang, A. Ataollahi, K. Althoefer, P. Dasgupta, and T. Nanayakkara, “A variable stiffness joint by granular jamming,” ASME 2012 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC 2012), Chicago, IL, USA, 2012.

H. Xie, A. Jiang, L. Seneviratne, and K. Althoefer, “Pixel-based Optical Fiber Tactile Force Sensor for Robot Manipulation,” IEEE Sensors 2012, Taipei, Taiwan, 2012.

F. Bianchi, G. Bartoli, K. Shoar, M. R. A. Fernandez, V. Pereno, J. Zirjakova, A. Jiang, and T. Nanayakkara, “Adaptive internal impedance control for stable walking on uncertain visco-elastic terrains,” IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2012), Vilamoura, Portugal, 2012.

H.A. Wurdemann, A. Jiang, T. Nanayakkara, L.D. Seneviratne, K. Althoefer, “Variable Stiffness Controllable and Learnable Manipulator for MIS,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2012) Workshop, St Paul, MN, USA, 2012.