Researchers at the world-renowned ASU Human Machine Symbiosis Lab at the Downtown campus are working to make interactions between people and the machines they create more efficient and beneficial for both parties.
The lab focuses on developing technologies for use in medicine and health care systems and has had projects implemented at hospitals worldwide.
“I started the lab around three years ago and ever since then, we have been developing virtual reality based solutions for medical environments,” said Kanav Kahol, founder of the lab and an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics.
The lab’s work is tailored to medicine because of the importance of technology in the field, he said.
“One of the best areas to test human machine symbiosis is in the medical and clinical environments because that is the place where if technology gets in the way and is not good, it can have very harmful impacts,” Kahol said. “On the other hand, it could have a really serious positive impact.”
He emphasized the importance of working with the consumers of their products to ensure their usefulness.
“What our lab is doing, which is very unique, is working closely with the clinical people so we can develop technology around their needs,” he said. “We are working with our final users to develop technology that we know will be useful.”
Through a partnership with Banner Health, the products get immediate real-world testing, and some of the technologies produced by the lab have garnered notice by national media outlets, Kahol said.
Two of the best-known projects have been a modified Nintendo Wii video game that can train surgeons, and a study showing that if doctors used the lab’s technologies to warm up before surgery, patient safety can be significantly improved.
The lab is continuing to receive grants to produce new technologies, including a recent $2.1 million grant to develop a virtual hospital in the game “Second Life.” Physicians in training would then be able to be training in a virtual environment.
It also has $1 million to develop a video-based system for differentiating good and bad surgeons and $1.2 million to determine if multi-touch devices, like iPads and iPhones, could have negative impacts on the body — for instance, causing carpal tunnel syndrome.
Prabal Khanal, a graduate research assistant and doctoral student at the lab, is working on developing virtual trainers for various medical disciplines.
“The main goal in my involvement with the lab is to provide solutions for challenging research problems related to medical domain and then apply those in real world scenarios,” Khanal said in an e-mail.
His current project is working on a CPR skills training simulator in the virtual world with an end goal of designing, developing and evaluating collaborative training in CPR.
Khanal emphasized the value of collaboration in production of the final product.
“In the HMS lab, we come from various disciplines including industrial design, bioengineering, computer science, and electrical engineering. Each member in the lab utilizes his/her expertise in design, development, implementation and evaluation together and give a final shape to the project,” he said.
The lab’s work has been featured in numerous publications, both national and international, and is currently being used for training at University of California at Irvine, Harvard, 15 universities in Mexico and three in India, among others.
Reach the reporter at dana.sheaff@asu.edu
