TechTalk – Micro-robots Powered by Stimuli-responsive Materials

All members of the HKU community and the general public are welcome to join!
Speaker: Professor Alfonso H.W. Ngan, Kingboard Professor in Materials Engineering, Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Engineering, HKU
Date: 13th October 2022 (Thursday)
Time: 4:30pm
Mode: Mixed
About the Tech Talk
All members of the HKU community and the general public are welcome to join!
Speaker: Professor Alfonso H.W. Ngan, Kingboard Professor in Materials Engineering, Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Engineering, HKU
Moderator: Professor Xiaobo Yin, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, HKU
Date: 13th October 2022 (Thursday)
Time: 4:30pm
Mode: Mixed (both face-to-face and online). Seats for on-site participants are limited. A confirmation email will be sent to participants who have successfully registered.
Language: English

Conventional mechatronic, hydraulic and pneumatic motors and actuators are used for large-scale robots from ≥10 cm to the human size. At the other, nanometric end of the length scale, nano-robots are powered by molecular motors. However, a number of applications in compact environments require robotic devices in the size range of 10 µm to 10 mm, but these are too small to be powered by the conventional mechatronic systems, and too large for molecular motors. Such a length scale ideally suits a few types of high-performance stimuli-responsive actuating materials that are emerging out of a very active research field in the past two decades, with examples including shape-memory polymers and metals, nanoporous noble metals, reactive polymers and liquid-crystal elastomers, carbon-based materials and transitional metal oxides. In addition to high actuating power densities, some of these materials also offer built-in sensory functions such as resistivity responses to mechanical, heat and humidity changes in the environment, and even energy generation capabilities. Integration of these materials and their signal flows in compact designs thus poses a novel strategy for robotics at the micro length scale. This talk will review some recent progress in this field.

Registration
  • The tech talk “Micro-robots powered by stimuli-responsive materials” will be organized in the Tam Wing Fan Innovation Wing Two (G/F, Run Run Shaw Building, HKU) on 13th October 2022 (Thursday), 4:30 pm.
  • Stay tuned for the registration.
  • Seats are limited. Zoom broadcast is available if the seating quota is full. 
  • Registrants on the waiting list will be notified of the arrangement after the registration deadline (with seating/free-standing/other arrangement)
  • Please read the Campus Access and HKU Vaccine Pass (https://covid19.hku.hk/announcements/all/2022/04/13776/)
About the speaker

Professor Alfonso H.W. Ngan

Professor Alfonso H.W. Ngan obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham in the U.K. in 1992. After a year of postdoctoral training at Oxford University, he joined HKU in 1993, and was promoted through the ranks to Chair Professorship in 2011.
His research-related honours include the Rosenhain Medal from the Institute of Materials, U.K., higher doctorate (DSc) from the University of Birmingham, Croucher Senior Research Fellowship, Guanghua Prize in Engineering Science and Technology, and Changjiang Professorship. He is elected Fellow of U.K.’s Royal Academy of Engineering and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences.

 

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