報告題目：

A Sample of Multi/Inter-Disciplinary Research: Soft Robotics for Prosthetic Devices

報告人：Professor Gursel ALICI

報告時間：2023年5月24日14:30-15:30

報告地點：電子與信息工程學院4A301

內容摘要：Soft robotics offers unprecedented solutions for applications involving safe interaction with humans and objects, and manipulating and grasping fragile objects, crops, and similar agricultural products. Progress in soft robotics will have a significant impact especially on medical applications such as wearable robots, prosthetic devices, assistive devices, and rehabilitation devices.

In this talk, we will describe what characteristics differentiate the field of soft robotics from the conventional hard robotics, and answer the question of where we are in soft robotics combined with progress in machine learning to establish physically assistive robotic devices (e.g. prosthetic hands) with user-acceptable features that will bring them one-step closer to their natural counterparts. The primary feature of such a prosthetic hand is to interpret and receive the hand user’s intention noninvasively, and equally importantly send sensory feedback about the state of a prosthetic hand to its user noninvasively to help “restore normality” for prosthetic hand users. We will also present the progress we have made in the research theme of soft robotics for prosthetic devices, exemplified with the establishment of a fully 3D printed transradial prosthetic hand, https://electromaterials.edu.au/2020/10/29/aces-technology-showcase-the-soft-robotic-hand/. We aim to establish an effectual bridge between robotics, upper-limb prosthetic devices, bionics and materials research in order to deliver the expected outcomes of soft robotics for prosthetic and rehabilitation devices in a timely manner.

報告人簡介：Gursel Alici (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in robotics from the Department of Engineering Science, Oxford University, Oxford, U.K., in 1994.

He is currently a Senior Professor with the University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, where he holds the position of Executive Dean for the Faculty of Engineering Information Sciences and prior to this, he was the Head of the School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering during 2011-2021. His research interests are soft robotics, system dynamics and control, robotic drug delivery systems, novel actuation concepts for biomechatronic applications, robotic mechanisms and manipulation systems, soft and smart actuators and sensors, and medical robotics. He has generated more than 400-refereed publications and delivered numerous invited seminars and keynote talks on his areas of research.

Since January 1, 2020, Dr. Alici has been a Senior Editor for the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. He was a Technical Editor of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics during 2008–2012. He was a Technical Editor for the IEEE Access, the first IEEE open access journal with interdisciplinary scope. From 2007 to 2017, he was a Member of the Mechatronics National Panel formed by the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He has served on the international program committee of numerous IEEE/ASME International Conferences on Robotics and Mechatronics. He was the General Chair of the 2013 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics held in Wollongong, Australia. He was the Leader of soft robotics for Prosthetic Devices theme of the ARC Center of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (July 2014-January 2022). He was the recipient of the Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning Award in 2010, the Vice-Chancellor’s Interdisciplinary Research Excellence Award in 2013, and Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Supervision in 2018 from the University of Wollongong. He was a Visiting Professor with Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (2007, 2010), City University of Hong Kong (2014), University of Science and Technology of China (2015), and University of British Columbia, Canada (2019).

（撰稿：李秀艷；審核：牛萍娟）

電子與信息工程學院

2023年5月19日