Publications

Books    |    Journal Articles    |    Refereed Conference Articles    |    Conference Abstracts    |    Patents

Book cover for Motion Planning in Medicine: Optimization and Simulation Algorithms for Image-Guided Procedures

Books

  1. Ron Alterovitz and Ken Goldberg, Motion Planning in Medicine: Optimization and Simulation Algorithms for Image-Guided Procedures, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, Springer, 2008. (Publisher, Amazon.com)

Book Chapters and Invited Articles

  1. Arthur W. Mahoney, Trevor L. Bruns, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “Design, Sensing, and Planning: Fundamentally Coupled Problems for Continuum Robots,” in Robotics Research, vol. 1, A. Bicchi and W. Burgard, Eds., Springer, 2015, pp. 267–282.
  2. Noah J. Cowan, Ken Goldberg, Gregory S. Chirikjian, Gabor Fichtinger, Ron Alterovitz, Kyle B. Reed, Vinutha Kallem, Wooram Park, Sarthak Misra, and Allison M. Okamura, “Robotic Needle Steering: Design, Modeling, Planning, and Image Guidance,” in Surgical Robotics: System Applications and Visions, (J. Rosen, B. Hannaford, and R. M. Satava, eds.), ch. 23, Springer, 2011, pp. 557-582. (Publisher, Amazon.com)
  3. Ron Alterovitz and Jaydev P. Desai, “Surgical Robotics,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 16-17, June 2009. (Publisher)

Refereed Journal Articles

  1. Alan Kuntz, Maxwell Emerson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Inbar Fried, Mengyu Fu, Janine Hoelscher, Margaret Rox, Jason Akulian, Erin A. Gillaspie, Yueh Z. Lee, Fabien Maldonado, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Autonomous medical needle steering in vivo,” Science Robotics, vol. 8, no. 82, pp. eadf7614, Sep. 2023. (Publisher) (Download PDF from Publisher)
  2. Mengyu Fu, Kiril Solovey, Oren Salzman, and Ron Alterovitz, “Toward Certifiable Optimal Motion Planning for Medical Steerable Needles,” International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), May 2023. (Publisher)
  3. Mengyu Fu, Alan Kuntz, Oren Salzman, and Ron Alterovitz, “Asymptotically optimal inspection planning via efficient near-optimal search on sampled roadmaps,” International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 150–175, Apr. 2023. (Publisher)
  4. Janine Hoelscher, Mengyu Fu, Inbar Fried, Maxwell Emerson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Margaret Rox, Alan Kuntz, Jason A. Akulian, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Backward Planning for a Multi-Stage Steerable Needle Lung Robot,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 3987–3994, Apr. 2021. [presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021] (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  5. Joseph D. Greer, Laura H. Blumenschein, Ron Alterovitz, Elliot W. Hawkes, and Allison M. Okamura, “Robust navigation of a soft growing robot by exploiting contact with the environment,” International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), vol. 39, no. 14, pp. 1724-1738, Dec. 2020. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  6. Margaret Rox, Maxwell Emerson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Mengyu Fu, Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, Alan Kuntz, Josephine Granna, Jason Mitchell, Michael Lester, Fabien Maldonado, Erin Gillaspie, Jason Akulian, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “Decoupling Steerability from Diameter: Helical Dovetail Laser Patterning for Steerable Needles,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 181411-181419, Oct. 2020. (Publisher)
  7. Alan Kuntz, Armaan Sethi, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Learning the Complete Shape of Concentric Tube Robots,” IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 140-147, May 2020. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  8. Yochanan E. Bigman, Adam Waytz, Ron Alterovitz, and Kurt Gray, “Holding Robots Responsible: The Elements of Machine Morality,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, pp. 1-3, 2019. (Publisher) (News)
  9. Cenk Baykal, Chris Bowen, and Ron Alterovitz, “Asymptotically Optimal Kinematic Design of Robots using Motion Planning,” Autonomous Robots, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 345-357, Feb. 2019. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  10. Chris Bowen and Ron Alterovitz, “Closed-loop Global Motion Planning for Reactive, Collision-free Execution of Learned Tasks,” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 10:1-10:16, May 2018. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
    (One of four journal papers selected for oral presentation at the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI))
  11. Philip J. Swaney, Arthur W. Mahoney, Bryan I. Hartley, Andria A. Remirez, Erik Lamers, Richard H. Feins, Ron Alterovitz, Robert J. Webster III, “Toward Transoral Peripheral Lung Access: Combining Continuum Robots and Steerable Needles,” Journal of Medical Robotics Research, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-14, 2017. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  12. Ron Alterovitz, Sven Koenig, and Max Likhachev, “Robot Planning in the Real World: Research Challenges and Opportunities,” AI Magazine, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 76-84, Summer 2016. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  13. Chris Bowen and Ron Alterovitz, “Asymptotically Optimal Motion Planning for Tasks Using Learned Virtual Landmarks,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1036-1043, July 2016. [presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016] (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  14. Momen Abayazid, Claudio Pacchierotti, Pedro Moreira, Ron Alterovitz, Domenico Prattichizzo, and Sarthak Misra, “Experimental Evaluation of Co-manipulated Ultrasound-guided Flexible Needle Steering,” International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 219–230, June 2016. (Publisher)
  15. Wen Sun, Jur van den Berg, and Ron Alterovitz, “Stochastic Extended LQR for Optimization-based Motion Planning Under Uncertainty,” IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 437-447, Apr. 2016. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  16. Raul Wirz, Luis G. Torres, Philip J. Swaney, Hunter Gilbert, Ron Alterovitz, Robert J. Webster III, Kyle D. Weaver, and Paul T. Russell III, “An Experimental Feasibility Study on Robotic Endonasal Telesurgery,” Neurosurgery, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 479-484, Apr. 2015. (Publisher)
  17. Wen Sun, Sachin Patil, and Ron Alterovitz, “High-Frequency Replanning under Uncertainty using Parallel Sampling-Based Motion Planning,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 104-116, Feb. 2015. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  18. Ken Goldberg, Siamak Faridani, and Ron Alterovitz, “Two Large Open-Access Datasets for Fitts' Law of Human Motion and a Succinct Derivation of the Square-Root Variant,” IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 62-73, Feb. 2015. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  19. Chris Bowen, Gu Ye, and Ron Alterovitz, “Asymptotically-Optimal Motion Planning for Learned Tasks Using Time-Dependent Cost Maps,” IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 171-182, Jan. 2015. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  20. Momen Abayazid, Pedro Moreira, Navid Shahriari, Sachin Patil, Ron Alterovitz, Sarthak Misra, “Ultrasound-Guided Three-Dimensional Needle Steering in Biological Tissue with Curved Surfaces,” Medical Engineering & Physics, vol. 37, pp. 145-150, Jan. 2015. (Publisher) (Video)
  21. Momen Abayazid, Gustaaf J. Vrooijink, Sachin Patil, Ron Alterovitz, and Sarthak Misra, “Experimental Evaluation of Ultrasound-Guided 3D Needle Steering in Biological Tissue,” International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 931-939, Nov. 2014. (Publisher)
  22. Jeffrey Ichnowski and Ron Alterovitz, “Scalable Multicore Motion Planning Using Lock-Free Concurrency,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 1123-1136, Oct. 2014. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Software)
  23. Gustaaf J. Vrooijink, Momen Abayazid, Sachin Patil, Ron Alterovitz, and Sarthak Misra, “Needle Path Planning and Steering in a Three-Dimensional Non-Static Environment using Two-Dimensional Ultrasound Images,” International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 33, no. 10, pp. 1361-1374, Sep. 2014. (Publisher) (Video)
  24. Sachin Patil, Jessica Burgner, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Needle Steering in 3-D via Rapid Replanning,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 853-864, Aug. 2014. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  25. Jur van den Berg, Sachin Patil, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning Under Uncertainty Using Iterative Local Optimization in Belief Space,” International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 31, no. 11, pp. 1263-1278, Sep. 2012. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  26. Kyle B. Reed, Ann Majewicz, Vinutha Kallem, Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, Noah J. Cowan, Allison M. Okamura, “Robot-Assisted Needle Steering,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol. 18, pp. 35-46, Dec. 2011. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  27. Vincent Duindam, Jijie Xu, Ron Alterovitz, Shankar Sastry, and Ken Goldberg, “Three-dimensional Motion Planning Algorithms for Steerable Needles Using Inverse Kinematics,” International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 789-800, June 2010. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  28. Nuttapong Chentanez, Ron Alterovitz, Daniel Ritchie, Jonha Cho, Kris K. Hauser, Ken Goldberg, Jonathan R. Shewchuk, and James F. O'Brien, “Interactive Simulation of Surgical Needle Insertion and Steering,” ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH), vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 88:1-88:10, Aug. 2009. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
    (Image from article featured on back cover)
  29. Ron Alterovitz, Aaron Arvey, Sriram Sankararaman, Carolina Dallett, Yoav Freund, and Kimmen Sjölander, “ResBoost: Characterizing and Predicting Catalytic Residues in Enzymes,” BMC Bioinformatics, vol. 10, no. 197, pp. 1-14, June 2009. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
    (Designated as "Highly accessed" by BMC Bioinformatics)
  30. Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, Jean Pouliot, and I-Chow Hsu, “Sensorless Motion Planning for Medical Needle Insertion in Deformable Tissues,” IEEE Trans. Information Technology in Biomedicine, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 217-225, Mar. 2009. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  31. Ron Alterovitz, Michael Branicky, and Ken Goldberg, “Motion Planning Under Uncertainty for Image-Guided Medical Needle Steering,” International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 27, no. 11-12, pp. 1361-1374, Nov. 2008. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  32. Ron Alterovitz, Etienne Lessard, Jean Pouliot, I-Chow Hsu, James F. O'Brien, and Ken Goldberg, “Optimization of HDR Brachytherapy Dose Distributions Using Linear Programming with Penalty Costs,” Medical Physics, vol. 33, no. 11, pp. 4012-4019, Nov. 2006. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  33. Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, Jean Pouliot, I-Chow Hsu, Yongbok Kim, Susan Moyher Noworolski, and John Kurhanewicz, “Registration of MR Prostate Images with Biomechanical Modeling and Nonlinear Parameter Estimation,” Medical Physics, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 446-454, Feb. 2006. (Publisher) (Download PDF)

Refereed Conference Articles

  1. Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, Jason A. Akulian, Stephen Pizer, and Ron Alterovitz, “Landmark Based Bronchoscope Localization for Needle Insertion Under Respiratory Deformation,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2023. (Download PDF)
  2. Angelos Angelopoulos, Matthew Verber, Collin Mckinney, James Cahoon, and Ron Alterovitz, “High-Accuracy Injection Using a Mobile Manipulation Robot for Chemistry Lab Automation,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2023. (Download PDF)
  3. Tony Qin, Peter Connor, Khoa Dang, Ron Alterovitz, Robert J. Webster, and Caleb Rucker, “Computational Analysis of Design Parameters for a Bimanual Concentric Push-Pull Robot,” in Proc. Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, June 2023. (Download PDF)
  4. Janine Hoelscher, Inbar Fried, Mengyu Fu, Mihir Patwardhan, Max Christman, Jason Akulian, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “A Metric for Finding Robust Start Positions for Medical Steerable Needle Automation,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2022, pp. 9526-9533. (Download PDF)
  5. Mengyu Fu, Kiril Solovey, Oren Salzman, and Ron Alterovitz, “Resolution-Optimal Motion Planning for Steerable Needles,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2022, pp. 9652-9659. (Download PDF)
  6. Mengyu Fu, Oren Salzman, and Ron Alterovitz, “Toward Certifiable Motion Planning for Medical Steerable Needles,” in Proc. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), July 2021, pp. 1–16. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video) (Software)
    (Best Paper Finalist Award)
  7. Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, Mengyu Fu, Maxwell Emerson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Margaret Rox, Josephine Granna, Alan Kuntz, Jason A. Akulian, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Design Considerations for a Steerable Needle Robot to Maximize Reachable Lung Volume,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2021, pp. 1418-1425. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  8. Mengyu Fu, Oren Salzman, and Ron Alterovitz, “Computationally-Efficient Roadmap-based Inspection Planning via Incremental Lazy Search,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2021, pp. 7449-7456. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Software)
  9. Maxwell Emerson, James M. Ferguson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Margaret Rox, Josephine Granna, Michael Lester, Fabien Maldonado, Erin A. Gillaspie, Ron Alterovitz, Robert J. Webster III, and Alan Kuntz, “A Recurrent Neural Network Approach to Roll Estimation for Needle Steering,” in Proc. International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), Nov. 2020, pp. 334–342. (Download PDF)
  10. Tayfun Efe Ertop, Maxwell Emerson, Margaret Rox, Josephine Granna, Robert Webster, Fabien Maldonado, Erin Gillaspie, Michael Lester, Alan Kuntz, Caleb Rucker, Mengyu Fu, Janine Hoelscher, Inbar Fried, and Ron Alterovitz, “Steerable needle trajectory following in the lung: torsional deadband compensation and full pose estimation with 5DOF feedback for needles passing through flexible endoscopes,” in Proc. ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC), Oct. 2020, pp. 1-9. (Download PDF)
  11. Haonan Chen, Hao Tan, Alan Kuntz, Mohit Bansal, and Ron Alterovitz, “Enabling Robots to Understand Incomplete Natural Language Instructions Using Commonsense Reasoning,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2020, pp. 1963-1969. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  12. Jeffrey Ichnowski, William Lee, Victor Murta, Samuel Paradis, Ron Alterovitz, Joseph E. Gonzalez, Ion Stoica, and Ken Goldberg, “Fog Robotics Algorithms for Distributed Motion Planning Using Lambda Serverless Computing,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2020, pp. 4232-4238. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  13. Alan Kuntz, Mengyu Fu, and Ron Alterovitz, “Planning High-Quality Motions for Concentric Tube Robots in Point Clouds via Parallel Sampling and Optimization,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Nov. 2019, pp. 2205-2212. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  14. Jeffrey Ichnowski and Ron Alterovitz, “Multilevel Incremental Roadmap Spanners for Reactive Motion Planning,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Nov. 2019, pp. 1504–1509. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  15. Sherdil Niyaz, Alan Kuntz, Oren Salzman, Ron Alterovitz, and Siddhartha S. Srinivasa, “Optimizing Motion-Planning Problem Setup via Bounded Evaluation with Application to Following Surgical Trajectories,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Nov. 2019, pp. 1355–1362. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  16. Shiwei Fang, Ron Alterovitz, and Shahriar Nirjon, “Non-Line-of-Sight Around the Corner Human Presence Detection Using Commodity WiFi Devices,” in Proc. ACM International Workshop on Device-Free Human Sensing (DFHS), Nov. 2019, pp. 22–26. (Download PDF)
  17. Mengyu Fu, Alan Kuntz, Oren Salzman, and Ron Alterovitz, “Toward Asymptotically-Optimal Inspection Planning Via Efficient Near-Optimal Graph Search,” in Proc. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), June 2019, pp. 1–10. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video) (Software)
  18. Alan Kuntz, Armaan Sethi, and Ron Alterovitz, “Estimating the Complete Shape of Concentric Tube Robots via Learning,” in Proc. Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, June 2019, pp. 43–44. (Download PDF)
  19. Jeffrey Ichnowski and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning Templates: A Motion Planning Framework for Robots with Low-power CPUs,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2019. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Software)
  20. Chris Bowen and Ron Alterovitz, “Probability-weighted Temporal Registration for Improving Robot Motion Planning and Control Learned from Demonstrations,” in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR 2018), Dec. 2018, pp. 1-16. (Download PDF) (Video)
  21. Jeffrey Ichnowski and Ron Alterovitz, “Concurrent Nearest-Neighbor Searching for Parallel Sampling-based Motion Planning in SO(3), SE(3), and Euclidean Topologies,” in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR 2018), Dec. 2018, pp. 1-16. (Download PDF) (Software)
  22. Sherdil Niyaz, Alan Kuntz, Oren Salzman, Ron Alterovitz, and Siddhartha S. Srinivasa, “Following Surgical Trajectories with Concentric Tube Robots via Nearest-Neighbor Graphs,” in Proc. International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), Nov. 2018, pp. 3-13. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  23. Mengyu Fu, Alan Kuntz, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Safe Motion Planning for Steerable Needles Using Cost Maps Automatically Extracted from Pulmonary Images,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2018, pp. 4942-4949. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  24. Patrick Anderson, Tayfun Ertop, Alan Kuntz, Fabien Maldonado, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “Sand Blasting Inside a Patient: A CRISP Robot for Spraying Powder Inside the Chest Cavity to Preclude Lung Collapse,” in Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, June 2018, pp. 121–122. (Download PDF)
  25. Alan Kuntz, Chris Bowen, Cenk Baykal, Arthur W. Mahoney, Patrick L. Anderson, Fabien Maldonado, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Kinematic Design Optimization of a Parallel Surgical Robot to Maximize Anatomical Visibility via Motion Planning,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2018, pp. 926-933. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  26. Chris Bowen and Ron Alterovitz, “Accelerating Motion Planning for Learned Mobile Manipulation Tasks using Task-Guided Gibbs Sampling,” in Proc. International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Dec. 2017. (Download PDF) (Video)
  27. Jeffrey Ichnowski, Jan Prins, and Ron Alterovitz, “The Economic Case for Cloud-based Computation for Robot Motion Planning,” in Proc. International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Dec. 2017. (Download PDF)
  28. Alan Kuntz, Chris Bowen, and Ron Alterovitz, “Fast Anytime Motion Planning in Point Clouds by Interleaving Sampling and Interior Point Optimization,” in Proc. International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Dec. 2017. (Download PDF)
  29. Alan Kuntz, Arthur W. Mahoney, Nicolas E. Peckman, Patrick L. Anderson, Fabien Maldonado, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning for Continuum Reconfigurable Incisionless Surgical Parallel Robots,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sep. 2017, pp. 6463–6469. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  30. Cenk Baykal and Ron Alterovitz, “Asymptotically Optimal Design of Piecewise Cylindrical Robots using Motion Planning,” in Proc. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), July 2017, pp. 1-10. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
    (Best Paper Award)
  31. Qingyu Zhao, Stephen Pizer, Ron Alterovitz, Marc Niethammer, and Julian Rosenman, “Orthotropic Thin Shell Elasticity Estimation for Surface Registration,” in Proc. Information Processing in Medical Imaging (IPMI), June 2017, pp. 493-504. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  32. Jeffrey Ichnowski, Jan Prins, and Ron Alterovitz, “Cloud-based Motion Plan Computation for Power-Constrained Robots,” in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR 2016), Dec. 2016. (Download PDF)
  33. Qingyu Zhao, True Price, Stephen Pizer, Marc Niethammer, Ron Alterovitz, and Julian Rosenman, “The Endoscopogram: A 3D Model Reconstructed from Endoscopic Video Frames,” in Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), Oct. 2016, pp. 439-447. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
    (Selected for oral presentation; only 5.0% of submissions presented orally)
  34. Alan Kuntz, Philip J. Swaney, Arthur W. Mahoney, Richard H. Feins, Yueh Z. Lee, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Toward Transoral Peripheral Lung Access: Steering Bronchoscope-deployed Needles through Porcine Lung Tissue,” in Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, June 2016, pp. 9-10. (Download PDF)
  35. Alan Kuntz, Luis G. Torres, Richard H. Feins, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning for a Three-Stage Multilumen Transoral Lung Access System,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sep. 2015, pp. 3255-3261. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  36. Cenk Baykal, Luis G. Torres, and Ron Alterovitz, “Optimizing Design Parameters for Sets of Concentric Tube Robots using Sampling-based Motion Planning,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sep. 2015, pp. 4381-4387. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  37. Qingyu Zhao, James Price, Stephen Pizer, Marc Niethammer, Ron Alterovitz, and Julian Rosenman, “Surface Registration in the Presence of Missing Patches and Topology Change,” in Proc. Medical Image Understanding and Analysis, July 2015, pp. 8-13.
    (Best Paper Award)
  38. Philip J. Swaney, Hunter B. Gilbert, Richard J. Hendrick, Oliver Commichau, Ron Alterovitz, Robert J. Webster III, “Transoral Steerable Needles in the Lung: How Non-annular Concentric Tube Robots Can Improve Targeting,” in Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, June 2015, pp. 37-38. (Download PDF)
    (Best Oral Presentation)
  39. Luis G. Torres, Alan Kuntz, Hunter B. Gilbert, Philip J. Swaney, Richard J. Hendrick, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “A Motion Planning Approach to Automatic Obstacle Avoidance during Concentric Tube Robot Teleoperation,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2015, pp. 2361-2367. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  40. Philip J. Swaney, Arthur W. Mahoney, Andria A. Remirez, Erik Lamers, Bryan I. Hartley, Richard H. Feins, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “Tendons, Concentric Tubes, and a Bevel Tip: Three Steerable Robots in One Transoral Lung Access System,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2015, pp. 5378-5383. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  41. Chris Bowen and Ron Alterovitz, “Closed-Loop Global Motion Planning for Reactive Execution of Learned Tasks,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sep. 2014, pp. 1754-1760. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  42. Wen Sun and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning under Uncertainty for Medical Needle Steering Using Optimization in Belief Space,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sep. 2014, pp. 1775-1781. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  43. Jeffrey Ichnowski and Ron Alterovitz, “Fast Nearest Neighbor Search in SE(3) for Sampling-Based Motion Planning,” in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics XI (WAFR 2014), H. L. Akin et al. (Eds.), STAR vol. 107, Springer, Aug. 2014, pp. 197-214. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Software)
  44. Wen Sun, Jur van den Berg, and Ron Alterovitz, “Stochastic Extended LQR: Optimization-based Motion Planning Under Uncertainty,” in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics XI (WAFR 2014), H. L. Akin et al. (Eds.), STAR vol. 107, Springer, Aug. 2014, pp. 609-626. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  45. Luis G. Torres, Cenk Baykal, and Ron Alterovitz, “Interactive-rate Motion Planning for Concentric Tube Robots,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2014, pp. 1915-1921. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  46. Jeffrey Ichnowski, Jan F. Prins, and Ron Alterovitz, “Cache-Aware Asymptotically-Optimal Sampling-Based Motion Planning,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2014, pp. 5804-5810. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  47. Wen Sun, Islam S. M. Khalil, Sarthak Misra, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning for Paramagnetic Microparticles Under Motion and Sensing Uncertainty,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2014, pp. 5811-5817. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  48. Pedro Moreira, Sachin Patil, Ron Alterovitz, and Sarthak Misra, “Needle Steering in Biological Tissue using Ultrasound-based Online Curvature Estimation,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2014, pp. 4368-4373. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
  49. Wen Sun, Luis G. Torres, Jur van den Berg, and Ron Alterovitz, “Safe Motion Planning for Imprecise Robotic Manipulators by Minimizing Probability of Collision,” in Proc. International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Dec. 2013, pp. 685-701. (Download PDF)
  50. Edgar J. Lobaton, Jinghua Fu, Luis G. Torres, and Ron Alterovitz, “Continuous Shape Estimation of Continuum Robots Using X-ray Images,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, pp. 717-724. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  51. Jeffrey Ichnowski and Ron Alterovitz, “Parallel Sampling-Based Motion Planning with Superlinear Speedup,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2012, pp. 1206-1212. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Software)
  52. Luis G. Torres, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Task-oriented Design of Concentric Tube Robots using Mechanics-based Models,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2012, pp. 4449-4455. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  53. Jur van den Berg, Sachin Patil, and Ron Alterovitz, “Efficient Approximate Value Iteration for Continuous Gaussian POMDPs,” in Proc. Twenty-Sixth AAAI Conference (AAAI-12), July 2012, pp. 1832-1838. (Download PDF)
  54. Sachin Patil, Jur van den Berg, and Ron Alterovitz, “Estimating Probability of Collision for Safe Planning under Gaussian Motion and Sensing Uncertainty,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2012, pp. 3238-3244. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  55. Edgar Lobaton, Ram Vasudevan, Ron Alterovitz, and Ruzena Bajcsy, “Robust Topological Features for Deformation Invariant Image Matching,” in Proc. International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), Nov. 2011. (Download PDF)
  56. Luis G. Torres and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning for Concentric Tube Robots Using Mechanics-based Models,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sept. 2011, pp. 5153-5159. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  57. Jur van den Berg, Sachin Patil, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning under Uncertainty using Differential Dynamic Programming in Belief Space,” in Proc. International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Aug. 2011, pp. 473-490. (Download PDF)
  58. Gu Ye and Ron Alterovitz, “Demonstration-Guided Motion Planning,” in Proc. International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Aug. 2011, pp. 291-307. (Download PDF) (Video)
  59. Sachin Patil, Jur van den Berg, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning Under Uncertainty In Highly Deformable Environments,” in Proc. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), June 2011. (Download PDF)
  60. Edgar Lobaton, Jinghe Zhang, Sachin Patil, and Ron Alterovitz, “Planning Curvature-Constrained Paths to Multiple Goals Using Circle Sampling,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2011, pp. 1463-1469. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  61. Ron Alterovitz, Sachin Patil, and Anna Derbakova, “Rapidly-Exploring Roadmaps: Weighing Exploration vs. Refinement in Optimal Motion Planning,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2011, pp. 3706-3712. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  62. Jur van den Berg, Sachin Patil, Ron Alterovitz, Pieter Abbeel and Ken Goldberg, “LQG-Based Planning, Sensing, and Control of Steerable Needles,” in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics IX (WAFR 2010), D. Hsu et al. (Eds.), STAR vol. 68, Springer-Verlag, 2010, pp. 373-389. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  63. Sachin Patil and Ron Alterovitz, “Interactive Motion Planning for Steerable Needles in 3D Environments with Obstacles,” in Proc. IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), Sep. 2010, pp. 893-899. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  64. Edgar J. Lobaton, Ramanarayan Vasudevan, Ruzena Bajcsy, and Ron Alterovitz, “Local Occlusion Detection Under Deformations Using Topological Invariants,” in Proc. European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6313, Sep. 2010, pp. 101-114. (Download PDF)
    (Selected for oral presentation; only 3.2% of submissions presented orally)
  65. Lisa A. Lyons, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Planning Active Cannula Configurations Through Tubular Anatomy,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2010, pp. 2082-2087. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  66. Sachin Patil and Ron Alterovitz, “Toward Automated Tissue Retraction in Robot-Assisted Surgery,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2010, pp. 2088-2094. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  67. Lisa A. Lyons, Robert J. Webster III, and Ron Alterovitz, “Motion Planning for Active Cannulas,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2009, pp. 801-806. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  68. Jijie Xu, Vincent Duindam, Ron Alterovitz, Jean Pouliot, J. Adam M. Cunha, I-Chow Hsu, and Ken Goldberg, “Planning Fireworks Trajectories for Steerable Medical Needles to Reduce Patient Trauma,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2009, pp. 4517-4522. (Publisher) (Download PDF)
  69. Kris Hauser, Ron Alterovitz, Nuttapong Chentanez, Allison Okamura, and Ken Goldberg, “Feedback Control for Steering Needles Through 3D Deformable Tissue Using Helical Paths,” in Proc. Robotics: Science and Systems, June 2009. (Download PDF)
  70. Meysam Torabi, Kris K. Hauser, Ron Alterovitz, Vincent Duindam, and Ken Goldberg, “Guiding Medical Needles Using Single-Point Tissue Manipulation,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2009, pp. 2705-2710. (Publisher) (Download PDF) (Video)
    (Best Medical Robotics Paper Award Finalist)
  71. Vincent Duindam, Jijie Xu, Ron Alterovitz, Shankar Sastry, and Ken Goldberg, “3D Motion Planning Algorithms for Steerable Needles Using Inverse Kinematics,” in Algorithmic Foundation of Robotics VIII (WAFR 2008), G. S. Chirikjian et al. (Eds.), STAR vol. 57, Springer-Verlag, Dec. 2008, pp. 535-549. (Download PDF)
  72. Kyle B. Reed, Vinutha Kallem, Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, Allison M. Okamura, and Noah J. Cowan, “Integrated Planning and Image-Guided Control for Planar Needle Steering,” in Proc. IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), Oct. 2008, pp. 819-824. (Download PDF)
  73. Jeremy Schiff, Anand Kulkarni, Danny Bazo, Vincent Duindam, Ron Alterovitz, Dezhen Song, and Ken Goldberg, “Actuator networks for navigating an unmonitored mobile robot,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Aug. 2008, pp. 53-60. (Download PDF)
  74. Jijie Xu, Vincent Duindam, Ron Alterovitz, and Ken Goldberg, “Motion Planning for Steerable Needles in 3D Environments with Obstacles Using Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees and Backchaining,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Aug. 2008, pp. 41-46. (Download PDF)
  75. Vincent Duindam, Ron Alterovitz, Shankar Sastry, and Ken Goldberg, “Screw-Based Motion Planning for Bevel-Tip Flexible Needles in 3D Environments with Obstacles,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2008, pp. 2483-2488. (Download PDF)
  76. Ron Alterovitz, Thierry Siméon, and Ken Goldberg, “The Stochastic Motion Roadmap: A Sampling Framework for Planning with Markov Motion Uncertainty,” in Robotics: Science and Systems III (Proc. RSS 2007), W. Burgard et al. (Eds.), MIT Press, 2008, pp. 233-241. (Download PDF)
    (Ranked in 2015 as a top 20 most cited paper from RSS in the last 10 years)
  77. Ron Alterovitz, Michael Branicky, and Ken Goldberg, “Constant-Curvature Motion Planning Under Uncertainty with Applications in Image-Guided Medical Needle Steering,” in Algorithmic Foundation of Robotics VII (WAFR 2006), S. Akella et al. (Eds.), STAR vol. 47, Springer-Verlag, 2008, pp. 319-334. (Download PDF)
  78. Ron Alterovitz, Andrew Lim, Ken Goldberg, Gregory S. Chirikjian, and Allison M. Okamura, “Steering Flexible Needles Under Markov Motion Uncertainty,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Aug. 2005, pp. 120-125. (Download PDF)
  79. Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, and Allison Okamura, “Planning for Steerable Bevel-tip Needle Insertion Through 2D Soft Tissue with Obstacles,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Apr. 2005, pp. 1652-1657. (Download PDF)
  80. Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, John Kurhanewicz, Jean Pouliot, I-Chow Hsu, “Image Registration for Prostate MR Spectroscopy Using Biomechanical Modeling and Optimization of Force and Stiffness Parameters,” in Proc. 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), Sept. 2004, pp. 1722-1725. (Download PDF)
  81. Ron Alterovitz, Jean Pouliot, Richard Taschereau, I-Chow Hsu, and Ken Goldberg, “Sensorless Planning for Medical Needle Insertion Procedures,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003), Oct. 2003, pp. 3337-3343. (Download PDF)
    (Best Paper Award Finalist)
  82. Ron Alterovitz, Jean Pouliot, Richard Taschereau, I-Chow Hsu, and Ken Goldberg, “Needle Insertion and Radioactive Seed Implantation in Human Tissues: Simulation and Sensitivity Analysis,” in Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2003), Sept. 2003, pp. 1793-1799. (Download PDF)
  83. James Moller, Mathew Carlson, Ron Alterovitz, and Joseph Swartz, “Post-ejection Cooling Behavior of Injection Molded Parts,” in Proc. 56th Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC '98), Vol. 1, Society of Plastics Engineers, Brookfield, CT, 1998, pp. 525-529.

Conference Abstracts, Posters, and Workshop Papers

  1. Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, Jason A. Akulian, and Ron Alterovitz, “A Dataset of Anatomical Environments for Medical Robots: Modeling Respiratory Deformation,” in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Workshop on Data vs. Model in Medical Robotics, Detroit, MI, Oct. 2023, pp. 1–4. (Download PDF from arXiv)
    (Best Poster Award (Top 2))
  2. Inbar Fried, Jason A. Akulian, and Ron Alterovitz, “A Clinical Dataset for the Evaluation of Motion Planners in Medical Applications,” in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Workshop on Evaluating Motion Planning Performance, Kyoto, Japan, Oct. 2022, pp. 1–4. (Download PDF from arXiv)
  3. Margaret Rox, Maxwell Emerson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Mengyu Fu, Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, Alan Kuntz, Josephine Granna, Jason Mitchell, Michael Lester, Fabien Maldonado, Erin Gillaspie, Jason Akulian, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “An Aiming Device for Steerable Needles,” in Proc. IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), Late Breaking Results Poster, Boston, MA (held virtually), July 2020.
  4. Maxwell Emerson, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Margaret Rox, Mengyu Fu, Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, Alan Kuntz, Josephine Granna, Jason Mitchell, Michael Lester, Fabien Maldonado, Erin Gillaspie, Jason Akulian, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “A New Sheath for Highly Curved Steerable Needles,” in Proc. IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), Late Breaking Results Poster, Boston, MA (held virtually), July 2020.
  5. Stephanie Amack, Margaret Rox, Jason Mitchell, Tayfun Efe Ertop, Maxwell Emerson, Alan Kuntz, Fabien Maldonado, Jason Akulian, Joshua Gafford, Ron Alterovitz, and Robert J. Webster III, “Design and Control of a Compact Modular Robot for Transbronchial Lung Biopsy,” Proc. SPIE Medical Imaging, vol. 109510I, San Diego, CA, Feb. 2019, pp. 1-8. (Download PDF)
  6. Sarah McGill, Julian Rosenman, Qingyu Zhao, Rui Wang, Ruibin Ma, Miao Fan, Marc Niethammer, Ron Alterovitz, Jan-Michael Frahm, Joel Tepper, and Stephen Pizer, “Missed Colonic Surface area at Colonoscopy Can Be Calculated with Computerized 3D Reconstruction,” Digestive Disease Week, Washington, DC, June 2018.
  7. Raul Wirz, Luis Torres, Philip Swaney, Hunter Gilbert, Ron Alterovitz, Robert Webster, Kyle Weaver, and Paul Russell, “Teleoperation of Concentric Tube Robots for Skull Base Applications: Pituitary Surgery at a Distance?,” North American Skull Base Society (NASBS) Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL, Feb. 2015.
  8. Andinet Enquobahrie, Vikas Shivaprabhu, Stephen Aylward, Julien Finet, Kevin Cleary, and Ron Alterovitz, “Patient-specific Port Placement for Laparoscopic Surgery Using Atlas-based Registration,” SPIE Medical Imaging, Lake Buena Vista, FL, Feb. 2013.
  9. Guus Vrooijink, Momen Abayazid, Sachin Patil, Ron Alterovitz, and Sarthak Misra, “Three-dimensional Flexible Needle Steering Using Two-dimensional Ultrasound Images,” 4th Dutch Bio-Medical Engineering Conference, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands, Jan. 2013.
  10. Nuttapong Chentanez, Ron Alterovitz, Daniel Ritchie, Lita Cho, Kris K. Hauser, Ken Goldberg, Jonathan R. Shewchuk, James F. O'Brien, “Simulation of Needle Insertion and Tissue Deformation for Modeling Prostate Brachytherapy,” American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, April 2010.
  11. Sophie Barbe, Isabelle Andre, Juan Cortes, Ron Alterovitz, Vincent Lafaquiere, David Guieysse, Pierre Monsan, Magali Remaud-Simeon, and Thierry Simeon, “A Robotic-based Path Planning Approach for Computing Large-Amplitude Motions of Flexible Molecules,” Fifteenth Meeting on Graphics and Molecular Modeling (GGMM), Grenoble, France, May 2007.
  12. Michael Wehner, Ron Alterovitz, and Ken Goldberg, “Geometric Nonlinearity: Is it Important for Real-time FEM Surgical Simulation?,” Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 14 (MMVR14), Long Beach, CA, Jan. 2006. (Download PDF)
  13. Ron Alterovitz, Etienne Lessard, Jean Pouliot, I-Chow Hsu, James F. O'Brien, and Ken Goldberg, “High-dose-rate Brachytherapy Dose Optimization for Prostate Cancer Using Linear Programming,” Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 2005.
  14. Ron Alterovitz, Yongbok Kim, John Kurhanewicz, Jean Pouliot, I-Chow Hsu, and Ken Goldberg, “Prostate MR Spectroscopy Image Registration Using Biomechanical Modeling of Tissue Deformations due to Endorectal Probe Insertion,” American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) 26th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, June 2005.
  15. Ron Alterovitz, Ken Goldberg, John Kurhanewicz, Jean Pouliot, I-Chow Hsu, “Registering MR with MRS images for HDR prostate treatment using finite element modeling,” 46th American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, July 2004.
  16. Ron Alterovitz, Jean Pouliot, Richard Taschereau, I-Chow Hsu, and Ken Goldberg, “Modeling Seed Misplacement by Simulating Tissue Deformations,” American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) 24th Annual Meeting, New York, NY, May 2003.
  17. Ron Alterovitz, Jean Pouliot, Richard Taschereau, I-Chow Hsu, and Ken Goldberg, “Simulating Needle Insertion and Radioactive Seed Implantation for Prostate Brachytherapy,” in Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 11 (MMVR11), J.D. Westwood et al. (Eds.), IOS Press, Jan. 2003, pp. 19-25. (Download PDF)

Technical Reports

  1. Ron Alterovitz and Ken Goldberg, “Comparing Algorithms for Soft Tissue Deformation: Accuracy Metrics and Benchmarks,” Technical Report (Draft), Berkeley Automation Laboratory, UC Berkeley, June 2002. (Download PDF)

Patents

  1. Ron Alterovitz, Richard H. Feins, Bryan I. Hartley, Alan D. Kuntz, Erik Lamers, Arthur W. Mahoney, Andria A. Remirez, Philip J. Swaney, and Robert J. Webster III, “Methods, systems, and computer readable media for transoral lung access,” United States Patent Application Serial No. 62/165,656, filed May 2015.
  2. Ron Alterovitz, Luis G. Torres, Philip J. Swaney, Hunter B. Gilbert, Robert J. Webster III, and Richard J. Hendrick, “Methods, systems, and computer readable media for controlling a concentric tube probe,” United States Patent Application Serial No. 62/165,648, filed May 2015.
  3. Robert J. Webster III, Allison M. Okamura, Noah J. Cowan, Gregory S. Chirikjian, Ken Goldberg, and Ron Alterovitz, “Distal bevel-tip needle control device and algorithm,” United States Patent 7,822,458, Oct. 2010. (View Patent)