Human Body Simulation Technology - PhD Study

Medical simulation technology has come a long way in recent years, and the future looks even more exciting. Laerdal Medical’s mannequins have been a crucial tool for healthcare learning applications, and this PhD project has been exploring ways to take them to the next level. Using agile methodologies and multidisciplinary tools, the project has focused on increasing the realism and fidelity of medical simulation technology. By incorporating sensors and artificial intelligence, the project has aimed to simulate specific patient conditions and provide more accurate training for medical personnel. The project has three goals: exploring new product opportunities, exploring new technology to enhance medical training products, and improving the development methodology and knowledge foundation on which these products are developed. To achieve this, the project has developed conceptual prototypes that combine novel sensors, materials, and means of actuation. These prototypes broadly cover the human anatomy from the face, neck, torso, abdomen, and vascular and skeletal systems. Being focused on training procedures and simulated scenarios, developed prototypes have shown the potential to increase the training impact of medical personnel and enable training for patient-specific characteristics. The project has published several results concerning early-phase product development and prototyping. For example, it has looked at user interactions and prototype-driven development to ensure that products and concepts solve concrete user needs and are helpful in training. They have also explored how non-rigid materials can be advantageous in the prototyping phases of development and how ecological validity and user needs can be ensured while developing simulation-based training equipment. Furthermore, the project has investigated the physical, social, and clinical interactions in medical training. This has led to the development of novel technology for sensing and contributing to training scenarios with both summative and formative feedback. Concepts for increasing the realism and usability of simulators have also been developed, including social cues, anatomical compliance, and tactile realism. The outcome of this project can contribute to ongoing efforts to explore human-robot interaction using expressive and nonverbal cues. Additionally, concepts for altered tactile interaction and soft robotic sensing and actuation can impact the future of medical simulation products.

First and foremost, the findings and technology developed throughout this project can improve the quality of medical training for healthcare professionals. By providing more realistic training scenarios, future medical training mannequins and technology can help healthcare professionals to develop the skills and knowledge they need to provide the best possible care to patients. In addition, advances in medical training mannequins and technology can also help to reduce the cost of medical training. Traditional medical training methods can be expensive, as they often require the use of real patients or other expensive equipment. Medical training mannequins and technology can help to reduce these costs, while still providing a high-quality training experience. Finally, medical training mannequins and technology can also help to improve patient safety. By providing healthcare professionals with realistic training scenarios, they can be better prepared to handle a wide range of medical emergencies, which can ultimately lead to better patient outcomes. These impacts could be supported by the findings of this research project and both developed technology, product opportunity, and development process knowledge (resulting the project) could aid further development of such and improved solutions. 

The project is primarily a Naerings-PhD project where Laerdal Medical dedicates one resource to do a PhD within technologies to be used for human patient simulation and techniques for effective product development. The PhD will be taken at NTNU, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. The PhD project is a part of a collaboration between NTNU and Laerdal that has been going on for a few years. NTNU will use case examples and tasks from Laerdal R&D challenges in their teaching, including yearly master thesis. The main R&D challenges around human patient simulation is creating realistic interaction between the simulator and the users. The challenges are on interactions such as speech, movement, vision, touch and feel in addition to clinical signs such as ECG, skin color, breathing patterns, sounds etc. By placing a PhD candidate at NTNU, Laerdal will strengthen the scientific competence of the Laerdal company, not only for the PhD candidate but also for other members of the product development function. The project will strengthen Laerdal's R&D competence and capabilities, exploring technologies that can be used for developing patient simulators. The PhD study will be centered around sensors, actuators, materials and mechanical solutions used for simulation of human body functions, in a patient simulation context. This can be movement of limbs, simulation of human skin reactions such as rashes, simulation of chest movement, injections of needles and fluid responses. In addition, the PhD will have a product development methodology dimension. Examples R&D challenges explored through the current cooperation between NTNU TrollLABS and Laerdal are moving and responding eyes (Master Thesis 2017), realistic ultrasound guided injection site of REBOA, realistic chest concerning force and response of CPR manikin (Master Thesis 2018). We expect that specific products will be developed following the research by the PhD candidate and activities at NTNU.