{"id":36765,"date":"2025-05-05T09:13:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T13:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/newengineer\/?p=36765"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T17:25:17","slug":"robotic-hands-are-the-next-frontier-in-astronaut-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/essie\/robotic-hands-are-the-next-frontier-in-astronaut-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Robotic hands are the next frontier in astronaut safety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Drifting silently in the cramped quarters of a spacecraft millions of miles from Earth, an astronaut clutches their side, wincing at a sudden, unfamiliar pain. There\u2019s no doctor onboard, no emergency room to rush to \u2014 only isolation and the ticking clock of a medical crisis in space. Scenarios like this are exactly what Eric Du<\/a>, Ph.D., and his team are working to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While space research often brings up images of distant worlds and cosmic phenomena, Du is focused on a more immediate challenge: safeguarding astronaut health. As NASA and other space agencies prepare for extended missions to the moon and Mars, the ability to diagnose and treat medical issues remotely, including procedures like ultrasounds, is no longer a distant ideal, but a vital necessity for life beyond Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Du\u2019s research, supported by NASA, is focused on making sure they don\u2019t have to wait that long to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Du, a professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and a member of the Astraeus Space Institute<\/a> at the University of Florida, is developing new ways for astronauts to control robotic hands \u2014 even when communication delays make real-time operation impossible. His work was recently featured in a BBC Future article<\/a> examining why robotic hands remain one of the biggest technical hurdles in robotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read full story on news.ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UF researcher Eric Du, Ph.D., is focused on developing new ways for astronauts to control robotic hands and improve the ability to diagnose and treat medical issues remotely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2592,"featured_media":36769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[31,35,61,57],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-36765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essie","category-featured","category-research-innovation","category-stories","tag-eric-du"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRobotic hands are the next frontier in astronaut safety - News from Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/essie\/robotic-hands-are-the-next-frontier-in-astronaut-safety\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Robotic hands are the next frontier in astronaut safety - 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