The scientific team of the Institute of Process Control and Robotics (IPR), lead by Prof. H. Wörn Brief, performs research in the fields of industrial automation and computer aided therapy both focusing on robotics. The coming operating theatre and virtual robot assisted surgery are main issues of our computer aided surgery research programme. This comprises sensor based surgical robots, flexible endoscopes, and visualisation systems for the coming surgical workplace. Another important reseach topic is humanoid robotics and IPR gained experience in human-machine collaboration by doing scientif work in the Collaborative Research Center 588 funded by DFG. In a nutshell, the integration of sensors into robotic systems runs like a thread trough all robot projects at IPR.

role in the project: he main tasks of IPR will focus on the sensing system, this means the integration and interpretation of sensor data into surgical context. On one hand the surgical intervention will be supported by using different optimal applicable sensing modalities to assure safe operations on patient. On the other hand all actions in the operating room will be monitored in order to prevent hazardous situations for the patient. In both cases the surgical work flow will be the reference.