Mechatronics Engineering

This list is not exhaustive, if there are any other areas of interest please contact the supervisor.

Project Supervisor

Dr Weihua Li

1. Study of sensing and actuating properties of MR elastomers

MR elastomers are solid-state composites which are made by aligning magnetizable particles into polymer matrix. These materials are smart materials as they exhibit two significant phenomena when subjected to a magnetic field. One is the field-induced changes in rheological properties and the other is the field-induced deformation. This unique material function makes feasible applications of MR elastomers in multifunctional, mechatronic material systems to achieve self-sensing capabilities. And if further combined with its tunable rheological properties, a real “smart” system could be realized with MR elastomer to fulfill its sensing, actuating and damping capabilities in one package. Thus, this will be the major objectives of the project.

2. MR haptic joysticks for virtual reality applications

Recently, the development of medical virtual reality products shows a sharply increasing trend. Healthcare systems are expected to account for as much as $15 billion of the total expenditure on information technologies within the next five years in the world. In virtual reality applications, haptic devices play a dominate role. Traditional haptic devices use motors and other actuators, which generate lots of disadvantages such as high cost, large volume and inaccurate force and torque control. Thus, it is crucial to design and develop high-efficiency haptic devices to replace common actuators and motors. MR fluids have the inherent ability to generate the passive resistance forces because of their dramatic and reversible change of yield stress in a magnetic field. Such “intelligent” materials have long been envisioned to offer simple, quiet, rapid response interfaces between electronic controls and mechanical systems. This project aims to develop compact, low-cost and effective MR haptic joysticks for commercial virtual applications.

3. Variables stiffness and damping MRE isolators for structural control

Damage to civil structures induced by large environmental loads such as earthquakes, strong winds or man-made hazards results in significant loss of human life and resources. Thus innovative means of enhancing structural protection against natural hazards and man-made hazards have become a necessity. Conventional isolation devices have been installed in a wide variety of structures and buildings for reduction of undesirable vibrations. However, the commonly installed passive systems have rather limited effectiveness while active systems have energy and fail safe problems. This project aims at developing a “smart” MR elastomer based isolation system to effectively protect structures against extreme earthquakes or other significant hazards. In this project, the state-of-the-art advanced MR elastomers will be fabricated and characterized. With the developed materials, the cost-effective MREs variable stiffness devices for building vibration control will be developed and evaluated.

4. Microfluidic devices for rapid concentration, detection and separation of pathogens in water

The presence of waterborne pathogens in water poses potential risks to public health and safety. It is fundamentally important to ensure the safety of our water sources through the steps of water quality monitoring. This project aims to develop dielectrophorestic microdevices for addressing the sample preparation problems in microbial water quality monitoring. By selectively concentrating or separating the live pathogenic bacteria (e.g. E-coli), the system to be developed can collect and deliver detectable amounts of samples to analytical devices in a rapid fashion and greatly reduced sample volumes, eliminating the need for overnight culturing steps. This project consists of the following important tasks: (a) identify and differentiate target waterborne pathogens from various biological species in water; (b) theoretical and experimental study the dielectrophoretic phenomena or behaviors of target pathogens; and (c) fabricate and evaluate an integrated an integrated microfluidic device for consecutive and rapid concentration, separation and analysis of target pathogens in water.

5. Control and manipulation of droplets in microfluidic devices

In microfluidic devices the fluid can be manipulated either as continuous streams or droplets. The latter has found growing importance in lab-on-a-chip design as droplet-based microfluidic systems are compatible with many chemical and biological reagents and capable of performing a variety of operations (such as droplet moving, splitting and fusing) that can be rendered programmable and reconfigurable. Thus, the development of a platform for control and manipulation of droplets will offer great flexibility in biomedical and biological applications. This project aims to design and development of a microfludic system to effectively manipulate droplets. In this project, both theoretical and experimental approaches will be conducted to predict and validate a variety of droplet motions, including generation, translocation, splitting, fusion, etc. The application of the droplet microdevice will also be studied.

6. Lab on a chip for high-speed cell sorter application

Current techniques in high-speed cell sorting are limited by the inherent coupling parameters, such as throughout, purity and rare cell recovery. Micorfluidics provides an alternate strategy to decouple these parameters through the use of arrayed devices that operate in parallel. To efficiently isolate rare cells from complex mixtures, an electrokinetic sorting technology, i.e. dielectrophoresis, will be developed that exploits dielectrophoresis in microfluidic channels. In this approach, the dielectrophorestic amplitude response of rare target cells is modulated by labeling cells with particles that differ in polarization response. Cell mixtures are interrogated in the DEP-activated cell sorter in a continuous-flow manner, where the electric fields are engineered to achieve efficient separation between the targeted particles and other particles. This technology or the developed sorter offers the potential for automated and selective cell sorting in a disposable format that is capable of simultaneously achieving high throughput, purity, and rare cell recovery.

7. Development of multifunctional microchips for field biological applications

Recently, highly contagious diseases have seriously threatened the public health worldwide. For example, the major threads of SARS and H5N1 avian flu virus took hundreds of lives when they broke through in the past. Biochips have attracted consideration interests recently because such devices are not only automated and free from contamination, but also require less time and valuable reagents. Thus, the prospective microfluidic integration systems will make great contributions to the future bio-technical field. However, the conventional biochip development is laboratory based. So far, none of these biochips are designed for field applications by non-technicians. This project aims to develop a highly innovative microfluidic and detection platform that can be operated by nontechnicians as a turn-key device, which is expected to make an immediate impact on epidemic control. The integrated chip will combines smart-fluid actuated micro mixer and micro pump with a micro heater array. Internal functional components are based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and silver/carbon black-PDMS compos

Project Supervisor

Associate Professor Gursel Alici

1. Magnetic actuation for micro/nano manipulation applications

This project is on the conceptual development of magnetic actuation for movements with a minimum resolution of 10 nm. The expected outcomes are to determine magnetic actuation characteristics to consider for nano/micro applications, and develop a magnetic actuation system in order to drive flexural mechanisms fabricated using traditional or MEMS fabrication techniques.

2. MEMS and NEMS for Mechatronics

The aim of this project is to study micro/nano fabrication of electroactive polymer actuators for mechatronic devices (e.g. MEMS and NEMS) with application to biotechnology, medicine, micro-optical instrumentation, micro/nano positioning systems, micro/nano robotics, and environment monitoring

3. Micro/Nano Cantilevers for Biosensing

This project aims at the fabrication of micro/nano cantilevers, their modeling and characterization to employ them as biosensors with high sensitivity, high limits of detection and high dynamic range attributes. These attributes can be improved through optimizing the geometry of the micro/nano cantilevers and using novel electromaterials.

4. Design and Fabrication of Biodegradable Micro/nano Fluidic Structures for Drug Delivery

The aim of this project is to establish fabrication techniques to make 2D and 3D structures for micro/nano fluidic devices with application to medical drug delivery, and lab-on-chip. Optimum design, modelling, analysis and performance quantification of the pumps will be investigated.

5. Bioinspired-Propulsion Systems Based on Electroactive Polymers

The aim of this project is to develop actuation modules, which can generate linear and rotary motion, which will mimic the kinematics of creatures typified by earthworms or like, and to propose it for pipe inspection robotic systems. The modules will be based on conducting polymer benders, which require low actuation voltages. This makes them very suitable to many applications with power on board

6. Electroactive Polymer based Propulsion Elements for Bio-inspired Swimming Devices

One of the challenges of the research in electroactive conducting polymers is to exploit their behaviours in new applications including making functional devices. One potential area where polymer actuators and sensors can be exploited is the area of biomimetics, which combines biology and engineering in order to adapt nature’s capabilities in establishing new technologies and applications. One such

7. Design, Modelling, Analysis and Characterization of Polymer Sensors

The aims of this project are to investigate into electroactive polymers typified by polyprrole as mechanical sensors, and to establish mathematical models and their sensing ability analytically and experimentally.

8. Modelling the bending behaviour of polymer actuators using dimensional analysis; a classical approach to a new problem

As the mechanism behind the operation of conducting polymer actuators and sensors is not fully understood, there is an increasing need to employ a proven technique, which is dimensional analysis, to drive empirical relations among the parameters affecting the operation of these actuators and sensors. This study will establish a bridge between modelling and synthesis in the micro/nano domain, and the output in the macro domain.