Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Inna Skarga-Bandurova is a leading researcher at the intersection of robotics, computer vision, and surgical automation. Her work focuses on enabling autonomous robotic assistants to understand and predict surgeon actions in the operating room, with the goal of making minimally invasive surgery safer and more efficient. She is a key contributor to the SARAS (Smart Autonomous Robotic Assistant Surgeon) project, where she helped create the ESAD (Endoscopic Surgeon Action Detection) dataset—a foundational resource for training AI to recognize surgical gestures and tool movements. Her most cited paper (29 citations) outlines the challenges and methods for detecting surgeon actions in endoscopic video, while related work on surgical hand gesture prediction and multi-domain action detection has advanced human-robot interaction in the OR. Beyond surgery, Skarga-Bandurova has made significant contributions to autonomous mobile robotics, developing real-time obstacle avoidance algorithms using ultrasonic sensors and evaluating real-time operating systems for vision-based navigation. Her work has been cited over 70 times, reflecting its impact on both surgical robotics and general autonomous systems. She is also a co-organizer of the SARAS challenge, fostering community progress in endoscopic action detection.