BIOGRAPHY
Prof. Hongliang Ren is a full professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in the Department of Electronic Engineering, where he received his Ph.D. in 2008. He has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automation Science & Engineering (T-ASE) and Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing (MBEC). He has navigated his academic journey through Chinese University of Hong Kong, Johns Hopkins University, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Children's National Medical Center, United States, and National University of Singapore (NUS).
His areas of interest include biorobotics, intelligent control, medical mechatronics, soft continuum robots, soft sensors, and multisensory learning in medical robotics. He is the recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (Scheme A), CUHK Young Researcher Award, NUS Young Investigator Award and Engineering Young Researcher Award, IAMBE Early Career Award 2018, Interstellar Early Career Investigator Award 2018, ICBHI Young Investigator Award 2019, and Health Longevity Catalyst Award 2022 by NAM & RGC, Best Paper Awards in IEEE-ROBIO (2019 & 2013), IEEE-RCAR2016, IEEE-CCECE2015, IEEE-Cyber2014 among 30+ other prestigious awards. He has been constantly listed among the world's top 2% of the most-cited scientists by Stanford University in the career-long category. He has published over 240 papers, accumulating more than 23,000 citations and achieving an H-index of 77.
He frequently served as an expert reviewer/judge for international funding agencies (60+ proposal reviews) of 10+ countries/regions.
PRESENTATION TITLE
Endoscopic Multisensory Navigation With Soft Flexible Robotics
ABSTRACT
Minimally Invasive Surgeries (MIS) emerging in modern medical treatment have brought new opportunities and challenges for procedure-specific surgical motion generation and the associated motion understanding, which are the foundation of intelligent robotic manipulation and guiding interventions. Image-guided robotic surgery is expected to increase the precision, flexibility, and repeatability of surgical procedures but poses challenges for system development. This talk will highlight our recent developments in dexterous robotic motion generation with motion perception towards intelligent image-guided minimally invasive procedures. The procedure-specific telerobotic surgical systems can assist surgeons in performing dexterous manipulations using continuum motion generation mechanisms with variable stiffness and context awareness.
BIOGRAPHY
Hideyuki Hasegawa received the B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from Tohoku University, Japan. He is currently a Professor with the Faculty of Engineering, University of Toyama, where he leads the Laboratory of Medical Information Sensing. Prior to joining the University of Toyama, he served as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Tohoku University. His research interests include ultrasound beamforming, quantitative blood flow imaging, vector flow imaging, arterial biomechanics, ultrafast ultrasound imaging, speed-of-sound estimation, scanning acoustic microscopy, and medical signal processing. He has made significant contributions to ultrasound-based quantitative assessment of cardiovascular function, particularly through the development of novel methods for blood flow velocity estimation and high-frame-rate imaging.
Prof. Hasegawa has actively contributed to the international ultrasound community through various leadership roles. He served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, Chair of the Technical Program Committee of the World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (WFUMB) 2025, and Website Editor of the Asian Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (AFSUMB), and currently serves as a member of the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), including Beamforming Track Lead (2020–2022), Councilor of the AFSUMB, Vice President of the Japan Society of Ultrasonics in Medicine (JSUM), and Chair of the International Exchange Committee of the JSUM.
PRESENTATION TITLE
Ultrasound Quantitative Blood Flow Imaging
ABSTRACT
Ultrasound imaging plays an essential role in the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular diseases because of its real-time capability, portability, safety, and cost-effectiveness. While conventional Doppler ultrasound provides qualitative or one-dimensional measurements of blood flow, increasing clinical demands have motivated the development of quantitative imaging techniques capable of accurately assessing complex hemodynamics.
This lecture reviews recent advances in ultrasound quantitative blood flow imaging, with a particular focus on methodologies developed to improve the accuracy and robustness of flow measurement. The talk first introduces the fundamental principles of Doppler-based flow estimation and discusses their inherent limitations, including angle dependence, aliasing, clutter interference, and restricted temporal and spatial resolution.
Subsequently, recent developments in quantitative blood flow imaging are presented, including high-frame-rate imaging enabled by plane-wave transmission, vector flow imaging, advanced clutter filtering techniques, and signal processing methods for accurate velocity estimation. These technologies enable more reliable visualization and quantification of complex flow patterns associated with vascular diseases.