Mechanical Engineering
Contact Information
Office:
Higgins Laboratories, 206
Phone: +1-508-831-5261
Fax: +1-508-831-5680
gfischer@wpi.edu
Gregory S. Fischer
- Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
- Affiliated with:
- Director of WPI AIM Laboratory
Professor Fischer is a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Engineering with an appointment in Biomedical Engineering at WPI. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2008 from Johns Hopkins University, where he was part of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer Integrated Surgery. At WPI he has been an integral part of developing the Robotics Engineering program and teaches primarily junior-level and graduate courses in Robotics.
He is also director of the Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Robotics Laboratory located in Higgins Laboratory (http://aimlab.wpi.edu). Medical robotics and computer integrated surgery is a multi-disciplinary field dedicated to providing as much information to a surgeon during a procedure and using that information in a way to produce better outcomes. The focus of the research in the WPI AIM Lab is on medical robotics—the link that allows us to enable "closed loop medicine" by using real time feedback to guide a surgical procedure. In order to take the most advantage of robots in surgery, we work towards integrating real-time medical imaging with the interventional procedure.
Professor Fischer’s research interests include medical robotics, MRI-compatible mechatronics, computer-assisted and image-guided surgery, sensors and actuator development, and robotics education.
Research Interests
- Medical robotics
- MRI-compatible mechatronics
- Computer-assisted and Image-guided surgery
- Sensors and actuator development
- Robotics education
Education
- BS, Mechanical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) - Troy, NY 2002
- BS, Electrical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) - Troy, NY 2002
- MSE, Electrical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University - Baltimore, MD 2003
- PhD., Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University - Baltimore, MD 2008
Featured Publications
- Fischer GS, Iordachita I, Csoma C, Tokuda J, DiMaio SP, Tempany CM, Hata N, Fichtinger G, MRI-Compatible Pneumatic Robot for Transperineal Prostate Needle Placement, IEEE / ASME Transactions on Mechatronics - Focused section on MRI Compatible Mechatronic Systems, Vol 13, No 3, pp 295-305, June 2008.
- Padir T, Fischer GS, Chernova S, Gennert MA, A Unified and Integrated Approach to Teaching a Two-Course Sequence in Robotics Engineering, Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, Vol 23, No 5, pp 748-758, Oct 2011.
- Su H, Zervas M, Cole GA, Furlong C, Fischer GS, Real-time MRI-Guided Needle Placement Robot with Integrated Fiber Optic Force Sensing, IEEE ICRA 2011 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shanghai, China, pp 1583-1588, May 2011.
- Cole GA, Harrington K, Su H, Camilo A, Pilitsis JG, Fischer GS, Closed-Loop Actuated Surgical System Utilizing In-Situ Real-Time MRI Guidance, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, eds. O. Khatib, V. Kumar, G. Sukhatme, Springer-Verlag, 2011.
- Su H, Fischer GS, High-field MRI-Compatible Needle Placement Robots for Prostate Interventions: Pneumatic and Piezoelectric Approaches, eds. T. Gulrez and A. Hassanien, Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality, Springer-Verlag, Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 26, pp. 3-32, 2011.
Spotlight On: Current Research
The research focus of the WPI AIM Lab is medical robots and image-guided surgery. We specialize in using robots in MRI to enable closed loop medicine based on real time imaging to guide surgical procedures.
