Overview- MJDudziak – work in motion detect, haptics, med/healthcare apps, kinect-surface-et-al interfaces

MJDudziak martinjd@tetradyn.com +1-202-415-7295 Skype martindudziak

Based upon research projects including as PI (principal investigator) and co-PI, funded by NIH and DARPA, and

subsequently in the private sector, Martin has designed interactive and mobile systems for medical (surgical) and

healthcare (including post-operative monitoring, physical rehab, and disease management) applications. This has

included work on motion detection and translation into system commands, involving motion by both an end user and a

patient under treatment. Dr. Dudziak has also engaged in research and development pertaining to IMRT (Intensity-

Modulated Radiation Therapy), IMGT (Image-Guided Radiation Therapy) and robotic surgery with a focus on advancing

the fundamental human-machine interface, ease of learning and training, and fault-tolerance (“fail safe”) procedures in

clinical operations. The medical focus has been upon two medically distinct areas which are very similar in engineering

requirements and implementations: (a) thoracic including liver cancer detection and treatment, and (b) physical

rehabilitation for patients suffering from severe brain trauma. This has included use of such systems as the classic

DaVinci robotic surgery system (Intuitive Surgical), a powerful haptic-empowered robotic surgery system (SOFIE), the

Accuray CyberKnife, and the IMRIS system combining surgery with real-time MRI.

This work led into early pre-release work with hardware and software from Microsoft and other vendors for the use of

motion detection as an interactive process for both healthcare providers and patients. This included experimental work

with Kinect, Surface, Asus, Leap Motion and other technologies.

The CIBI Initiative (2010 – 2012) was a project involving professionals from three companies, two medical practices, two

hospitals and two universities for the design of tools that could take advantage of these emerging COTS (commercial-off-

the-shelf) technologies, including an emphasis on the training of nurses and technicians who are needed to assist in

procedures involving haptic and motion-detection interfaces. Early prototyping was done with Kinect for Xbox and LEGO

MindStorm robots, the latter being a convenient substitute for otherwise unavailable and costly specialized equipment.

Martin’s design strategy for these and other system designs has been to keep the end-user (physician, nurse, therapist,

patient, patient assistant) at the center of attention within the architecture definition process and its subsequent

implementation and to ensure adaptability of the system to emerging new advances in commercial equipment.

Among other current projects on which Martin is presently working, an adaptation of the earlier Kinect experiments is

being applied to the 3D manipulation and fine-tuned control of remote instruments, using standard motion detection

hardware and software with a Surface display, providing the user the ability to treat the graphical objects on that

Surface as if they were located in 3D-space, in order to achieve movement-control along three axes (vertical as well as in

the horizontal xy-plane). This has direct application to training and practice in physical rehabilitation, for instance.