Supervisor: Carlo Menon

Goal:

The objective of this project is to develop a novel system, the Autonomous Intubation System (AIS), capable of autonomously inserting a catheter in the human’s airway.

Methodology:

A fluidic actuator (FA) has recently been developed in Menon’s research group. The FA is to be embedded with a miniaturized camera to act as the artificial eye (AE) of the AIS. Such an AE is to be fixed to the tip of a catheter for intubation. Software is to be developed to process the images taken by the camera and provide a control signal to the FA. The FA should accordingly bend to guide the catheter in the human’s trachea.

The student will work with the assistance of a graduate student. There is a strong possibility to be involved in the publication of a scientific article.

Tasks to be accomplished:

1)    Identify an inexpensive miniaturized camera or another suitable sensor to navigate the catheter in the human’s trachea.

2)    Embed the FA with the camera/sensor.

3)    Develop software to control the FA.

4)    Develop a setup to simulate intubation.

5)    Demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed project through experimental procedure.

Required skills:

Prerequisite: at least 100 credit hours.

The ideal candidate would like to contribute in applied research and be willing to work on an applied biomedical project.

Important notes:

1) This project could be a coop internship, or a Special Porject Course (ENSC 494), or an undergraduate thesis.

2) The instructor plans to involve the student on scientific publications resulting from this work.

3) Menon's research group has already published numerous works on this project with undergraduate and graduate students.