W12: AI as an enabling tool for building robust healthcare technologies

AI as an enabling tool for building robust healthcare technologies

This workshop is being run by the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Accountable, Responsible and Transparent AI (ART-AI) at the University of Bath. The ART-AI brings together researchers from across the University to train the next generation of specialists with expertise in AI, its applications and its implications.

Technology has never been as pervasive and disruptive in healthcare as it is today. We are continually seeking new and better ways to both treat injury and disease and to improve quality of life. Advances in materials, manufacturing, and AI are enabling personalised therapies that are both more targeted and potentially more impactful than conventional pharmaceuticals. However, many challenges (and opportunities) remain if we are to fully leverage the power offered by these technological breakthroughs.

AI has a plethora of applications within healthcare, and in this workshop we will focus on how AI can be used to enable more robust and resilient neural prostheses and assistive devices. We will also consider how an improved understanding of the normal operation of the nervous system can be used to inspire novel AI techniques.

The workshop will also explore some of the ethical and regulatory implications that surround not just AI but also medical devices more broadly. We will discover some of the barriers to adoption and will discuss potential regulatory changes that might be required to achieve both economic and societal impact.

Workshop attendees will:

• Learn how AI can enable more robust and resilient healthcare technologies and devices
• Understand the regulatory challenges and potential barriers to adoption
• Learn how the lines between technology and biology can be blurred, and how we can draw inspiration from biology to develop novel AI techniques.

Who should attend this workshop

Workshop Leaders

Dr Benjamin Metcalfe, Centre for Biosensors, Bioelectronics and Biodevices
Ben holds a PhD in biomedical engineering and has spent the past four years working within the Centre for Biosensors, Bioelectronics and Biodevices. His work focusses on developing neural prostheses – implantable and wearable devices that interface with the nervous system in order to restore function lost due to injury or disease. He also holds a number of non-executive roles in charities and institutions that support the development of assistive devices and healthcare technologies.

Dr Uriel Martinez-Hernandez, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Uriel is Lecturer in Robotics at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Bath. He obtained his PhD in Robotics from the University of Sheffield. He was a Research Fellow and Research Associate at the Institute for Design, Robotics and Optimisation at the University of Leeds and Sheffield Robotics Lab at the University of Sheffield, respectively.

He is core member of the Centre for Autonomous Robotics (CENTAUR), member of the Accountable, Responsible and Transparent – Artificial Intelligence (ART-AI) and Centre for Biosensors, Bioelectronics and Biodevices at the University of Bath. He specialises in AI and multimodal sensing for decision-making and robot control, wearable sensing and activity recognition, and human-robot interaction. He is the leader of the Multimodal Interaction and Perception Robotics (inte-R-action) group, and his research groups focuses on the development of machine learning methods for recognition of human activities using multimodal wearable sensors.

He has been part of the organising committee of the International Conference on Living Machines, and he is currently Co-Editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI journal, and MDPI Sensors journal.

Dr Dingguo Zhang, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Dr. Dingguo Zhang is a Reader in Robotics Engineering, a Co-Director of Centre for Autonomous Robotics (CENTAUR), Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, University of Bath. His research interests include functional electrical stimulation, neural-machine interfaces, and rehabilitation robotics.

He serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Access, IEEE Trans. Human-Machine Systems, and Scientific Reports (Nature-Springer). He is a Topic Editor of Frontiers in Neuroscience and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. He is a senior member of IEEE (EMBS, RAS, SMC), and serves in three technical committees (BioRob, TST, BMI) of EMBS and SMC.

He was a Board Member of International Society of Functional Electrical Stimulation (IFESS) and a Youth Commission Member of International Society of Bionic Engineering (ISBE).

He was the winner of the Delsys Prize 2011 for achievements on EMG, and a finalist of BCI Award 2015 and 2020. He attracted large grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) during his activity at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

He has authored over 180 papers and some were published in top biomedical and robotic journals including IEEE TNSRE, TBME, TMECH, TMRB, JBHI, JNE, NeuroImaging. He has owned 26 patents/software copyrights.