Speakers
Autonomous Robotics in Minimally Invasive Surgery
My work focuses on introducing autonomy into minimally invasive surgical robotics to support and enhance surgeon performance. In this talk, I will review the current clinical state of robotic surgery, highlight how autonomy can assist, and present recent developments from our group in automating key surgical tasks.
Dr. Dominic Jones is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Medical Robotics at the University of Leeds. His research focuses on enhancing minimally invasive surgical robotics by introducing additional perception to enable assistive autonomy and augment surgeon dexterity. He is particularly interested in improving the safety of robot-tissue interactions in surgery, and developing affordable medical devices for a range of clinical settings.
Dr. Jones received his MEng in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Leeds in 2015, followed by a PhD in 2019 with the Healthcare Mechatronics Group, where he developed low-cost tactile sensing for surgical instruments. He continued at Leeds as a Postdoctoral Researcher, creating wearable tactile sensors in orthotic devices to assess and predict disease progression based on force-skin interactions. In 2021, he joined the STORM Lab, advancing research in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery, including automated intra-abdominal scanning and sensor augmentation of surgical tools. He was appointed to his current academic position in 2023.