Third-year electrical engineering student Lucia Gan, left, worked with PhD student Meaghan Bowthorpe during her Dean's Research Award project, finding new ways to enable a robotic arm to "see" and respond to a moving object. The ultimate goal of the project, overseen by electrical engineering professor Mahdi Tavakoli, is to develop a robotic device capable of performing surgery on a beating heart.
Edmonton-Even though both her parents are electrical engineers, Lucia Gan would never have imagined that her studies in the same discipline could have an impact on how heart surgeries are performed.
But that is exactly the kind of work Gan was involved in as part of a three-month Dean's Research Award project. Working in electrical engineering professor Mahdi Tavakoli's lab, under the guidance of PhD student Meaghan Bowthorpe, Gan's job was to determine whether or not ultrasound could be used as the "eyes" for a robotic arm designed to perform surgery on a beating heart.
Presently, surgeons either stop a patient's heart or use a mechanical device to hold it still during operations-which is one of Tavakioli's major research projects.
Up until now, Bowthorpe's experiments with the robotic arm relied on a camera to let the robotic arm "know" where it was relative to a simulated beating heart, giving the system information it needs to move in unison with the heart-a feat no human surgeon's hand is capable of.
Experiments Gan conducted proved that ultrasound is a reliable tool to enable this new technology. Using ultrasound takes the technology an important step forward, conceivably allowing the robotic arm to perform minimally invasive surgeries.
For Gan, who has had engineering experience working on engineering jobs in the oil and gas industry, the project was an eye-opening experience.
"The interest in biomedical engineering, for me, is that you're helping people in new, innovative ways," said Gan. "I got to investigate everything-a lot of my project was setting up the feedback control system, and controls is a class I'm taking next semester."
Gan was also impressed to learn how different faculties at the U of A are working together in interdisciplinary research projects. For example, Tavakoli works with researchers at the Mazankowski Heart Institute on this project.
Bowthorpe says the work Gan performed gives the team a new tool that they can begin to conduct further research with.
The Dean's Research Award program gives undergraduate students the opportunity to work on research projects with professors and graduate students, giving them valuable exposure to research experience and enhancing their educational experience. The program is opened to all undergraduate engineering students with a GPA of 3.2. For more information, visit the Dean's Research Awards website.