SBME Seminar with Dr. Michael Yip – Unlocking Autonomous Surgical Robotics: From Image Guided Systems to Humanoid Robot Platforms

Location: LSC3 (1003), Life Sciences Centre – 2350 Health Sciences Mall

Meeting ID: 99012 948442
Password: 948442

The School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are excited to co-host a seminar by Dr. Michael Yip, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, Director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab), and Director of the Healthcare and Medical Robotics Collaboratory at the UCSD Contextual Robotics Institute. 

Unlocking Autonomous Surgical Robotics: From Image Guided Systems to Humanoid Robot Platforms

Despite remarkable progress in clinical adoption over the past two decades, surgical robotic systems remain large, physically constrained, and limited in autonomy. Today’s platforms are precise but teleoperated (not autonomous) and are restricted to specific procedures, require trained teams to set up and operate, and offer limited medical image integration and AI guidance. These conventional systems are also expensive and challenging to deploy: across developed countries, they are found only in well-financed healthcare systems with significant capital and resources, and even there, in relatively small numbers. Meanwhile, global demand for surgical care is growing while access to surgeons remains uneven, particularly in resource-limited and remote settings, widening healthcare disparities across patient populations.

Meeting the evolving needs of modern healthcare requires rethinking not just how robots are used in surgery, but what they can become—shifting from rigid, teleoperated tools toward autonomous partners in the operating room. This talk presents our research on enabling greater surgical autonomy through novel 3D vision algorithms, soft-tissue digital twinning, and foundation model-based robot learning. I will close with our recent work on human-robot teaming using humanoid systems, examining the limitations of the current state of the art and the opportunities ahead for research and deployment.

Dr. Michael Yip’s Biography:

Michael Yip is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, Director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab), and Director of the Healthcare and Medical Robotics Collaboratory at the UCSD Contextual Robotics Institute. His research and expertise are in the areas of surgical robotics, biomimetic robots, and robot learning.

His research lab at UCSD has received numerous best paper awards at top robotics and AI conferences, and Dr. Yip has been recognized by the NSF CAREER award, NIH Trailblazer award, and as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. His research projects have led to the founding of several robotics startup companies. He was named the Faculty Innovator of the Year at UC San Diego in 2024 and elected as a Senior Member into the U.S. National Academy of Inventors.

Dr. Yip is also a former Disney Imagineer and Faculty Consultant to Amazon Robotics. His degrees are in Mechatronics Engineering (BS), Electrical Engineering (MS), and Bioengineering (PhD) from U. Waterloo, UBC, and Stanford University, respectively.

Links to Social Media:  

http://www.ucsdarclab.com (Research Lab), Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcyip