Samarat
	Undergraduate Class of 2010
	Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
	Columbia University

Current Projects:
Experimental Analysis and Modeling of Friction forces during 1 degree of freedom, constant velocity, non-steerable electrode insertions into a planar 1:1 model of the scala tympani. This work was done with Jian Zhang and Professor Simaan as an undergraduate reserach project. The over-all project is to design and assemble a parallel robot to assist surgeons in
performing steerable electrode insertions into the scala tympani. A steerable electrode is an electrode with a wire in the middle which can be pulled to change the curvature of the whole electrode, making it "steerable". The purpose of the surgery is to allow the electrode to give electrical stimuli to the cochlea to simulate sound for patients who would otherwise be unable to process sound with their cochlea.

Fig 1: The scala tympani is the largest of several cavities in the cochlea, an organ in the middle ear.

The purpose of the experiments was to analyze friction during 1 dimensional insertions of a nonsteerable electrode into a planar plastic model of the scala tympani. A force sensor recorded the force readings generated from the friction of the insertion, as well as the insertion depth of the electrode into the model scala tympani. We performed the insertions at constant speed, for multiple speeds.

Figure 2: A picture of the experimental set up

Publications: The results of this work were submitted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2009.

Zhang, J., Bhattacharyya, S.,Simaan, N., “Model and Parameter Identification of Friction During Robotic Insertion of Cochlear-Implant Electrode Arrays,” Submitted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA’2009), 2009.