Research overview

The Biomechanical Engineering group (BE) is specialized in the application area of Biomedical Technology. The research aims focuses on the interaction between the human motor system and medical devices that support this system. The result of this research is applied in the development of innovative devices.

The mission of the research programme of BE is:

The department has five research chairs:

Engineering Organs Support Technologies (EOST)
Jutta Arens, Frank Halfwerk (Cardiac Surgery Innovations Lab) and Jeroen Rouwkema (Vascularization Lab)

Biomechatronics and Rehabilitation Technology (BRT)
Herman van der Kooij, Edwin van Asseldonk, Arvid Keemink, Ali Sadeghi (Soft Robotics Lab), Mark Vlutters (Nakama Robotics Lab)

Surgical Robotics (SR)
Sarthak Misra, Islam Khalil, Venkat Kalpathy Venkiteswaran

Neuromechanical Engineering (NE)
Massimo Sartori, Rai MacLean

Biomedical Device Design and Production Technology (BDDP)
Gabriëlle Tuijthof, Edsko Hekman, Malte Asseln, Femke Schröder, Izad Tamadon, Nico Verdonschot


The medical application areas of the research are rehabilitation, orthopaedics and neurology. The research is focussed in three themes:

The programme is entirely embedded in the Institute MIRA. In each research project, at least one clinical partner participates.