About me
I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, and my advisor is Dr. Nabil Simaan. I am currently a research assistant at the Advanced Robotics and Mechanism Applications Research Laboratory (ARMA Lab), and I am also affiliated with Vanderbilt Institue in Surgery and Engineering (VISE). 

My research interests include modeling and control of continuum robots with an emphasis on medical applications, kinematic error propagation and calibration of robots, robotic force controlled exploration, and robotic hand designs.

Education

• 2012 - present: Ph. D. in Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
• 2010 - 2012: M. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
• 2006 - 2010: B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Projects

• Intelligent flexible robots for safe manipulation of anatomy
• Force-controlled exploration for updating virtual fixture geometry in model-mediated telemanipulation. (videos)
• Calibration and error propagation of continuum robots
• Modeling of continuum robots for multi-scale manipulation

Publications
Peer Reviewed Journal Papers

1. Wang, L., Chen, Z., Chalasani, P., Yasin, R. M., Kazanzides, P., Taylor, R. H. and Simaan, N. (2017). Force-Controlled Exploration for Updating Virtual Fixture Geometry In Model-Mediated Telemanipulation. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics.
   
2. Roy, R., Wang, L. & Simaan, N (2017). Modeling and Estimation of Friction, Extension and Coupling Effects in Multi-Segment Continuum Robots. IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics
   
3. Ayvali, E., Ansari, A., Wang, L., Simaan, N., and Choset, H. (2017). Utility-Guided Palpation for Locating Tissue Abnormalities. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2(2), 864-871. ResearchGate Link
   
4. Simaan, N., Bajo, A., Reiter, A., Wang, L., Allen, P. and Fowler, D., 2013. Lessons learned using the insertable robotic effector platform (IREP) for single port access surgery. Journal of robotic surgery, 7(3), pp.235-240. Special Issue: Hamlyn Symposium 2012]. ResearchGate Link
   
5. Groom, K., Wang, L., Simaan, N. & Netterville, J. (2015).Robot-Assisted Trans-nasal Laryngoplasty in Cadaveric Models: Quantifying Forces and Identifying Challenges. The Laryngoscope, 125(5), 166-168. ResearchGate Link

Peer Reviewed Conference Papers

1. Del Giudice, G., Wang, L., Shen, J., Joos, K. and Simaan, N., "Continuum Robots for Multi-Scale Motion: Micro-Scale Motion Through Equilibrium Modulation", IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS’), Vancouver, Canada, 2017 (accepted).
2. Wang, L., Chen, Z., Chalasani, P., Pile, J., Kazanzides, P., Talor, R. H., Simaan, N(2016). Updating Virtual Fixtures From Exploration Data in Force-controlled Model-based Telemanipulation. In ASME 2016 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (pp. V05AT07A031-V05AT07A031).
3. Roy, R., Wang, L. & Simaan, N (2016).Investigation of Effects of Dynamics on Intrinsic Wrench Sensing in Continuum Robots. In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 2052-2059). IEEE. [finalist best medical robotics paper].
4. Chalasani, P., Wang, L., Roy, R., Simaan, N. & Taylor, R. H (2016). Concurrent Nonparametric Estimation of Organ Geometry and Tissue Stiffness Using Continuous Adaptive Palpation. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 4164-4171). IEEE.
5. Ayvali, E., Srivatsan, A., Wang, L., Roy, R., Simaan, N. & Choset, H (2016). Using Bayesian Optimization to Guide Probing of a Flexible Environment for Simultaneous Registration and Stiffness Mapping. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 931-936). IEEE.
6. Srinivasan, A., Ayvali, E., Wang, L., Roy, R., Simaan, N. & Choset, H (2016). Complementary model update: A method for simultaneous registration and stiffness mapping in flexible environments. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 924-930). IEEE.
7. Srivatsan, A., Wang, L., Ayvali, E., Simaan, N. & Choset, H. (2016). Simultaneous Registration and Stiffness mapping of a Flexible Environment using Stiffness and Geometric Prior. The Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics (2016), July, 2016.
8. Wang, L. & Simaan, N (2014). Investigation of Error Propagation in Multi-Backbone Continuum Robots. In Advances in Robot Kinematics, pages 385-394. Springer International Publishing.
9. Bajo, A., Goldman, R. E., Wang, L., Fowler, D. & Simaan, N (2012). Integration and Preliminary Evaluation of an Insertable Robotic Effectors Platform for Single Port Access Surgery. In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2012 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 3381-3387). IEEE. [finalist best medical robotics paper]

Peer Reviewed Papers before ARMA

• Wang, L., Del Preto, J., Bhattacharyya, S., Weisz, J., and Allen, P. K (2011). A highly-underactuated robotic hand with force and joint angle sensors. IEEE/RSJ Inter. Conf. IROS 2011, San Francisco, California, USA, pp 1380 – 1385, 2011.
• Wang, L., Zhang, W., Ye, Y., et al (2009). The indirect style under-actuated robotic finger with tendon-slider mechanisms. IEEE Inter. Conf. Robio 2009, Guilin, China, pp 1790 – 1795, 2009.
• Zhang, W., Wang, L., Hao, L., et al (2010). An indirect style linkage under-actuated humanoid robot hand. IEEE Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (CAR), Wuhan, China, pp 421 – 424, 2010.