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Hybrid Assembly of Polymeric Nanofiber Network for Robust and Electronically Conductive Hydrogels

Hydrogels are promising candidate materials for the construction of soft electronics and biomedical devices due to their mechanical flexibility, structural permeability, and biocompatibility. However, achieving high electrical conductivity and mechanical robustness in hydrogels remains challenging, which limits their practical applications.
Professor Lizhi Xu’s research team has developed a new type of electroconductive hydrogels with outstanding mechanical strength and manufacturability.

A Self-rotating, Single-actuated UAV with Extended Sensor Field of View for Autonomous Navigation

The UAV is named Powered-flying Ultra-underactuated LiDAR-sensing Aerial Robot (PULSAR), whose motion in three-dimensional space is controlled by only a single actuator (i.e., motor). The single actuator design can naturally cause self-rotation motion of the UAV body, obviously extending the field of view (FoV) of the onboard LiDAR sensor. Furthermore, it also effectively reduces the energy loss of the propulsion system, allowing PULSAR to save 26.7% of energy consumption compared to a benchmarked quadrotor UAV. Utilizing the extended FoV and onboard computing resource, PULSAR can perform autonomous navigation in unknown environments and detect both static and dynamic obstacles in panoramic views without using any external instruments. PULSAR has large FoV, high flight efficiency, and autonomous navigation ability, which are all beneficial for the environmental observation and information collection. Therefore, it can be used in various applications, such as environment surveying, search and rescue, terrain mapping, and automatic 3D reconstruction.

Self-powered Multimodal Smart Skin Enabled by Triboelectricity and Hygroelectricity

Tactile e-skins mimicking functions of human skin can sense tactile modalities such as pressure, vibration, temperature, and humidity. They are essential components for smart robotics, health monitoring devices and human–machine interfaces.
However, complicated materials, sophisticated manufacturing, device integration and external power sources are required for most of existing multi-functional e-skins, which severely limit their widespread use.

Ultrastrong and multifunctional aerogels with hyperconnective network of composite polymeric nanofiber

Aerogels are lightweight materials with extensive microscale pores, which could be used in thermal insulation, energy devices, aerospace structures, as well as emerging technologies of flexible electronics. However, traditional aerogels based on ceramics tend to be brittle, which limits their performance in load-bearing structures. Due to restrictions posed by their building blocks, recently developed classes of polymeric aerogels can only achieve high mechanical strength by sacrificing their structural porosity or lightweight characteristics.

DeepPhase: Periodic Autoencoders for Learning Motion Phases Manifolds

Professor Komura’s research focuses on creating diverse human movements for computer animation, games, and virtual environments. His research team designed a new type of neural network called the Periodic Autoencoder that can identify repeating patterns in large sets of motion data without any additional information. This allows us to create unique movements in various styles, such as dance motions synchronized to music or dribbling movements in soccer. Additionally, the system can help find similar motions in large database, produce natural movements between a small number of key frame poses and estimate human movements even when the body is partially obscured in videos.

From Hospital-centric to Human-centric: “PERfECT” Wearables for Digital Health

“HKU PERfECT” is the first wearable platform that can simultaneously acquire the following three merits.

1. Highly sensitive: By combing electrochemical technology with microelectronic technology, the highest sensitivity is reached.

2. Smallest and lightest: By using the smallest possible electronic units and marrying emerging stretchable bioelectronic technologies, coin-sized and light (0.5 grams) PERfECT wearables have been used for diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, and rehabilitation.

3. Energy efficient: By using interdisciplinary research strategies spanning analytical chemistry, low-power microelectronics, and low-power wireless communication, PERfECT achieves the highest accuracy with the lowest power consumption, ideal for long-term using.

3D Printed Anti-counterfeiting Labels At the Microscale

Counterfeiting threatens the global economy and security. According the report issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2020 “the value of global counterfeiting and pirated products is estimated US $ 4.5 trillion a year.” Despite enormous efforts, conventional anti-counterfeiting approaches such as QR codes can be easily fabricated due to limited data encryption capacity on a 2D in-plane space.

How can we increase the encryption density in a limited space?