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TechTalk – Heterogeneous Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits: Progress and Prospects

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

April 18 2024 (Thursday) 5:00-6:00pm
Photonics has played a vital role in shaping information technology infrastructure. Now it is considered crucial for addressing the emerging bandwidth constraints and power consumption challenges in hyperscale datacenters and high-performance computing systems. Central to these photonic solutions are photonic integrated circuits (PICs) which have seen dramatic progress in the past decades. A heterogeneous silicon photonics platform that integrates materials with superior properties is projected to fully unlock the application potentials of PICs. Examples include combining novel light sources (e.g., optical frequency combs and narrow-linewidth lasers) with other functional components on a single chip, to construct PICs with complete optical functionalities and advantages in terms of integration density, energy consumption and performance. In this talk, I will introduce the recent progress of heterogeneous silicon photonic integrated circuits and outline the prospects.

HKAES TechTalk – Creating New Radio Frequency Wave Technology for 6G

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

April 23 2024 (Tuesday) 4:00-5:00pm
Radio frequency (RF) waves are a fundamental phenomenon that can carry electromagnetic signals and energy through space and interact with it. Their use in wireless communication has revolutionized our lives and created a mobile information society and new industries. However, RF wave technology can do much more and in this talk I explore new RF wave technologies that can be further exploited for 6G. I broadly classify the new RF technologies into wave shaping and wave sensing and in this talk I focus on the development of RF Imaging, RF energy harvesting and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). In particular both the concepts and experimental results obtained from our prototypes are presented for each of these technologies. Furthermore, while each of these technologies is promising, significant further research is needed to exploit the enormous potential of new RF wave technology for 6G and this is also detailed.

TechTalk – Machine Learning and Animal Behavior: Interdisciplinary Innovations in Neuroscience and Engineering

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

April 12 2024 (Friday) 3:30-4:30pm
This presentation explores machine learning (ML) integration with animal behavior studies and its transformative applications across neuroscience, human mobility analysis, and engineering. At the core of our research is the affinity between the complex behaviors observed in animal society and the predictive capabilities of ML algorithms.
In neuroscience, we introduce the development of robotic microscopes and feedback projections, offering insights into animal behavior at macroscopic and microscopic levels. This foundation supports our further applications in diverse fields such as retail analytics, human relationships estimation, and mobility service design. In the engineering domain, our work extends to preventive maintenance (condition-based maintenance: CBM) in manufacturing and transportation, drawing from the predictive nature of ML to foresee and mitigate equipment failures. Moreover, we introduce ML for digital twinning to create dynamic virtual models of physical systems.
This array of applications highlights the critical role of integrating computer vision and ML into problem-solving workflows across various production plants. This presentation emphasizes the essential need for interdisciplinary collaboration, bridging the gap between biologists, data scientists, and engineers.

HKAES TechTalk – Collaborative Edge Computing for Ubiquitous AI

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

March 26 2024 (Tuesday) 4:00-5:00pm
Edge computing provides a powerful way to rapidly analyze data and process tasks at the edge of the network, closer to the end-user. Edge AI extends edge computing to enable AI on edge devices to make instantaneous intelligent decisions. In this talk, I will describe the vision of future Edge AI, called Ubiquitous AI, empowered by collaborative edge computing (CEC), which is a new-generation scalable edge computing infrastructure. With the computing power shared by collaborative edge nodes, edge AI models can be trained and seamlessly deployed jointly by the edge nodes that can be geographically distributed across a wide area. I will highlight the architecture and framework of CEC and how it enables ubiquitous AI demanded by advanced smart city applications like autonomous driving, industry 4.0 and metaverse.

TechTalk – UAV Navigation and Mapping with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) Sensors

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

March 28 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
Over the last decades, small-size multi-copter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have received intensive research interests. These UAVs have shown promising potential for various applications, including aerial photography, farming, delivery, mapping, and surveying. However, for these applications to be successful, autonomous flights in unknown environments are necessary. In this talk, we will discuss our work on developing autonomous UAVs using lidar navigation. Specifically, we will explore recent advancements in lidar technologies and focus on navigation algorithms, including localization, mapping, planning, and control. We will showcase how lidar sensors can be utilized on small UAVs to enable complex navigation tasks, such as high-speed flight navigation, environment exploration, and estimation of agile UAV motion.

TechTalk – Hong Kong’s Innovation and Technology (I&T) Development

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

March 22 2024 (Friday) 4:00-5:30pm
Ms Lillian Cheong will be sharing the latest updates on Hong Kong’s innovation and technology policies and also discuss the key initiatives outlined in the recent financial budget, specifically focusing on the policies related to innovation and technology. The sharing highlighting the strategic directions, funding opportunities, and support measures for startups and tech companies.
Attendees can expect to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the innovation ecosystem in Hong Kong and the government’s efforts to foster a vibrant and competitive environment for technological advancements.

TechTalk – The World at the Microscale: From Swimming Microorganisms to Artificial Microrobots

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

March 14 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
Swimming at microscales encounters stringent physical constraints due to the dominance of viscous forces over inertial forces. Swimming microorganisms have evolved their flexible appendages to overcome these constraints to swim effectively. These natural swimmers also developed versatile navigation strategies to explore their surroundings and search for specific targets. Extensive efforts in the past few decades have sought to elucidate underlying physical principles for cell motility, which has inspired a variety of designs for artificial microrobots. In this talk, I will discuss two problems of microswimmers in biological and artificial systems. I will first discuss the biophysical mechanisms through which swimming microorganisms sense and navigate their surroundings. I will then discuss the application of artificial intelligence in the development of intelligent microrobots that can self-learn how to swim and navigate at the microscale.

Young Scholar TechTalk – Customizable Acoustic Metamaterials on Frequency and Spatial Dimensions

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

March 12 2024 (Tuesday) 4:30-5:30pm
Acoustic metamaterials are artificially designed structured ‘atoms’. Initially, scientists discovered that these meta-atoms can exhibit extraordinary properties beyond those found in natural materials, such as negative density and negative modulus, through localized resonance, which sparked significant interest in the academic community. Subsequently, it was confirmed that these unique narrow-band frequency responses can be extended to broadband impedance designs, leading directly to the emergence of absorption metamaterials and opening up large-scale applications in noise reduction. In recent years, the potential of customizable metamaterials has gradually been realized. We will present our latest works from two complementary perspectives: customized frequencies and spatial non-uniformity, which may open up new applications such as directional emission, stealth cloaking and automotive acoustics.

TechTalk – Device-Independent Quantum Key Generation

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

March 7 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
The extraction of private, uniformly random bits from weakly random seeds is a problem of central importance in cryptography with multiple applications. A well-known result in classical computer science states that randomness extraction is possible using classical resources only when multiple independent sources are available. On the other hand, Quantum Entanglement enables a solution to the problem even in the so-called device-independent framework. Device-Independent quantum cryptography offers the highest form of security, wherein the users do not need to even trust the devices executing the cryptographic protocol, and can instead verify correctness and security by means of simple statistical tests on the devices. In this talk, we report on the state-of-art theoretical and experimental results on device-independent quantum cryptography, with a focus on quantum randomness amplification and quantum key distribution.

TechTalk – Nature-Inspired Fluidics

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

February 29 2024 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
Fluids are ubiquitous in nature and transport of fluids plays an essential role in sustaining many activities across multiple scales. The mode of fluidic transport therefore also spans multiple length scales. Moreover, despite largely aqueous in nature, natural fluids exhibit complexity, dynamics and structures that have yet to be replicated synthetically. In this talk, I will share our works in designing approaches to form, manipulate and direct aqueous solutions. In particular, I will focus on unique properties of aqueous multiphase systems that may serve as model systems for understanding their natural counterparts. I will conclude by discussing how these systems can potentially inspire biomimetic and biomedical applications.