Samuel Pinault

Institut Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique

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About

Samuel Pinault is a leading figure in medical robotics, specializing in robotic co-manipulation, haptic control, and image-guided patient positioning for advanced cancer therapies. His most influential work centers on the development of the Orion prototype, a six-degree-of-freedom (DoF) robotic system designed for precise patient positioning in proton therapy. His 2015 paper on robotic co-manipulation with 6 DoF admittance control (16 citations) demonstrates a novel approach where clinicians physically guide a robot carrying a patient, using a custom haptic device to ensure safety and accuracy. Earlier, Pinault contributed to minimally invasive surgery with his 2005 work on robust real-time instrument tracking in ultrasound images (8 citations), proposing visual servoing to enhance hand-eye coordination. He also advanced daily patient repositioning protocols in protontherapy through an iterative, registration-based method (2007, 6 citations), addressing the critical challenge of unknown tumor location during setup. With a career spanning two decades, Pinault’s innovations have directly improved the precision and safety of robotic systems in clinical settings, bridging the gap between haptic feedback and autonomous control. His work remains foundational for researchers developing co-manipulation strategies in radiation oncology and surgical robotics.