Project leader - Prof. Eng. Doina Pisla PhD (CV, brainmap)

Prof. Doina Pisla finished her PhD studies in 1997 at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, in the field of modelling and simulation of robots and she is a full professor since 2005 and PhD supervisor since 2007. Under her supervision 11 PhD theses in the field of medical robotics have been successfully elaborated and defended and she coordinates at the present moment other 7 PhD students in different PhD stages. Prof. Pisla founded in 2001 in cooperation with the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, the Research Centre for Robots Simulation and Testing (CESTER), which is one of the excellence centres within the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.

Competences and responsabilities: mechanism theory, parallel medical robots, kinematics, dynamics, simulation and control, risk and safety issues in robotics, management.

Key member - Prof. Eng. Nicolae Plitea PhD (CV, brainmap)

Prof. Nicolae Plitea is the scientific coordinator of CESTER, with an experience of over 40 years in the development of parallel robots having developed over 40 new robotic structures with parallel architecture. Acknowledged by many as the founding father of parallel robots in Romania, Prof. Plitea experience will greatly support the project implementation.

Competences and responsabilities: mechanism synthesis, kinematic and dynamic modeling.

Key member - Prof. Eng. Calin Vaida PhD (CV, brainmap)

Prof. Calin Vaida received his PhD in 2009 with the first Romanian surgical robot (PARAMIS). In 2010 he won a post-doctoral grant where he developed a new solution for the increase of the surgical instruments workspace by adding a multi-bend wrist to classical instruments. In 2019 dr. Vaida received his habilitation with the thesis entitled "Medical robotic systems with application in surgery, oncology and rehabilitation".

Competences and responsabilities: workspace optimization, CAD modeling, simulation, real-time control.

Key member - Assoc. Prof. Eng. Bogdan Gherman PhD (CV, brainmap)

Assoc. Prof. Bogdan Gherman teaches within the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca since 2012 focusing on computer and robot programming. Dr. Gherman focused his activity on medical robots, successfully developing, within his PhD studies the first Romanian robotic system for the manipulation of active instruments (PARASURG).

Competences and responsabilities: numerical modeling and simulation, decision based agents.

Key member - Assoc. Prof. MD. Nicolae Crisan PhD (CV, brainmap)

Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Crisan teaches at University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca, and works at the "Clujana" Municipal Hospital of Cluj-Napoca. He has strong competences in laparoscopic and robotic surgery of benign and oncologic pathologies and prostate cancer etiopathogenesis.

Competences and responsabilities: robotic surgery, minimally invasive, general and abdominal surgery.

Other researchers

Challenge team will also have five young researchers, three postdocs: Prof. Eng. Adrian Pisla PhD(CV, brainmap) Conf. Eng. Florin Covaciu PhD(CV, brainmap) Lec. Eng. Paul Tucan PhD (CV, brainmap), with competences in robot design, mathematical analysis, modelling and simulation, virtual reality and MD. Iulia Andras PhD (CV, brainmap) from UMF, Cluj-Napoca with competences in laparoscopic and robotic surgery. Moreover, two PhD students: Eng. Gabriela Rus PhD student(CV, brainmap) Eng. Alexandru Pusca PhD student (CV, brainmap) being involed in all research activities.