Alan Kuntz

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— Concentric tube robots are thin, tentacle-like devices that can move along curved paths and can potentially enable new, less invasive surgical procedures. Safe and effective operation of this type of robot requires that the robot's shaft avoid sensitive anatomical structures (e.g., critical vessels and organs) while the surgeon teleoperates the robot's(More)
Computing globally optimal motion plans for a robot is challenging in part because it requires analyzing a robot's configuration space simultaneously from both a macroscopic viewpoint (i.e., considering paths in multiple homotopic classes) and a microscopic viewpoint (i.e., locally optimizing path quality). We introduce Interleaved Optimization with(More)
— Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death, and early-stage diagnosis is critical to survival. Biopsy is typically required for a definitive diagnosis, but current low-risk clinical options for lung biopsy cannot access all biopsy sites. We introduce a motion planner for a multilumen transoral lung access system, a new system that has the(More)
To help realize the vision of autonomously driving vehicles, we look to the field of robotics to answer the question of how to get to our destination efficiently while avoiding obstacles. The foremost question one must ask before planning a route, and continuously while en route, is where are we now? This is a non­trivial problem, given the inaccuracies and(More)
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