In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Eric Diller, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, on wireless micro-scale robots that could eventually be used in human surgery. Diller speaks about the design, control, and manufacture of micro-scale surgical robotic devices, as well as when we might see this technology in the operating room.
Dr. Diller received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in 2013. His work is enabling a new approach to non-invasive medical procedures, micro-factories and scientific tools. He does this by shrinking the mechanical and electrical components of robots to centimeter, millimeter or even micrometer size. He uses magnetic fields and other smart-material actuation methods to make mobile functional devices. Dr. Diller envisions a future where drug delivery and surgery can be done in a fast, painless and focused way, and where new materials and devices can be manufactured using swarms of tiny gripping, cutting, and sensing wireless robots.
Dr. Diller has received the MIE Early Career Teaching Award, the UofT Connaught New Researcher Award, the Ontario Early Researcher Award, and the I.W. Smith Award from the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineers.
