Convocation Newsletter, Summer 2018

18 Brain Surgery Robot PhD student Guo Ziyan 郭子彥 (1 st left) was the first author of a piece of research that won the Best Conference Paper Award at the largest international forum for robotics scientists, the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, held in May 2018 in Australia. It marked the first time that the award was conferred on a female engineer as the paper’s first author since its establishment in 1993. A team led by Dr Kwok Ka-wai 郭嘉威 at the Faculty of Engineering developed a robot capable of performing brain surgery inside an MRI scanner. One of the surgical procedures is deep brain stimulation, which is an effective treatment for disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. The HKU engineering team comprised seven students. The research was co-authored with surgeons from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Robots without Motors HKU’s Faculty of Engineering invented the world’s first nickel-hydroxide actuating material which can be triggered by both light and electricity. The mechanical engineering team led by Professor Alfonso Ngan 顏慶雲 (BSc(Eng) 1989) (below left), Chair Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, and Kingboard Professor in Materials Engineering, published an article in Science Robotics in May introducing a novel actuating material – nickel hydroxide-oxyhydroxide – that can be powered by visible (Vis) light, electricity, and other stimuli. The first author of this paper is Dr Kwan Kin-wa 關鍵鏵 (BEng( ME) 2010; MSc(Eng)(ME) 2011; PhD 2016), who is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Professor Ngan’s group.  Light-induced actuating materials are highly desirable because they enable the wireless operation of robots. However, few light-driven materials were available in the past, and their material and production costs were high, hindering their use in actual applications such as artificial muscles for robotics, minimally invasive surgical and diagnostic tools. SUMMER 2018