ME scholar’s Innovative Bio-inspired System won TechConnect Global Innovation Awards 2017

The research team led by Dr Xingjian Jing, Associate Professor of The Department of Mechanical Engineering has developed a novel bio-inspired nonlinear anti-vibration system that can significantly reduce vibration in various mechanic systems. The innovation far excels existing devices in cost-efficiency and performance reliability and can have extensive applications. Dr Jing’s innovative bio-inspired system is one of the three PolyU innovations having won the TechConnect Global Innovation Awards 2017. It is the first time for a Hong Kong higher education institution to receive the awards, along with other global-renowned research institutes (including US NASA, National Labs, Georgia Tech, Princeton Lab, UCLA, Australia National U etc), at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference and Expo, the largest multi-sector summit for supporting the development and commercialization of innovations. The annual event held in the US gathers more than 4,000 technology innovators, ventures, industrial partners and investors from over 70 countries. Only the top 20% of innovations submitted to TechConnect World will receive awards, with an assessment based on the potential positive impact the submitted technology will have on a specific industry sector. PolyU is the only awardee from Hong Kong and snatches 3 out of the 26 global awards presented to non-US-federal-funded innovations across the world. Another 60 national awards are granted to innovations with US federal funding. The PolyU delegation will present their innovations and receive the awards in mid-May at TechConnect World conference and expo held in Washington DC. Inspired by the limb structures of birds and insects in motion vibration control, the novel X-shaped system is of the capability to demonstrate nearly “zero response” to any vibration (quasi-zero low dynamic stiffness), but simultaneously of high loading capacity. It also features automatic high damping for strong vibration, and low damping for small vibration (thus preventing high damping’s adverse effect on a system’s normal functioning during small vibration). These advantages stem from the novel system’s nonlinearity – a unique feature lacking in most vibration control systems nowadays, which are usually following linear system design. The novel system can therefore be applied very widely in various engineering practices and vibration control devices. With superb anti-vibration performance, the new device can markedly help prevent hand-arm occupation diseases among construction workers. By using the new device, the vibration at hand/arm in drilling concrete ground can be significantly suppressed to the ideal safety level, compared with many commonly-used jackhammers in the market. The very low cost in manufacturing and maintenance, with great design flexibility for adapting to devices of different sizes and materials, can also enhance its potential popular use.

The 2016 Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award

The research work on fuzzy active control of vehicle suspension systems from Dr XJ Jing’s research group received The 2016 Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award, which was just announced during the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2016) held at Hotel Intercontinental Budapest during 9-12 Oct 2016. The award is to recognize the authors of the best paper published annually in the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC) (established in 1998), which was funded by the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society through an endowment administered by the IEEE Foundation. The basis for Judging the award is according to the originality, technical merit, potential impact to the SMCS field of interest, and presentation quality. The award of this year is granted to the paper published in IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (IF 4.943, Rank 1/22 in Cybernetics, 6/130 in Artificial Intelligence): H Li, XJ Jing, HK Lam, P Shi, Fuzzy sampled-data control for uncertain vehicle suspension systems, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics 44(7), 1111-1126, 2014. It is a joint research work collaborated within Bohai University (Mainland of China), PolyU (HK), King’s College London (UK), and University of Adelaide (Australia) receiving 138 citations by far (in google scholar). The paper investigates the problem of sampled-data H∞ control of uncertain active suspension systems via fuzzy control approach. The work focuses on designing state-feedback and output-feedback sampled-data controllers to guarantee the resulting closed-loop dynamical systems to be asymptotically stable and satisfy H∞ disturbance attenuation level and suspension performance constraints. Using Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model control method, T-S fuzzy models are established for uncertain vehicle active suspension systems considering the desired suspension performances. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, the existence conditions of state-feedback and output-feedback sampled-data controllers are obtained by solving an optimization problem. The IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics is the flagship conference of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. It provides an international forum for researchers and practitioners to report up-to-the-minute innovation and development, summarize state-of-the-art, and exchange ideas and advances in all aspects of systems science and engineering, human-machine systems, and cybernetics. The SMC2016 is dedicated to the Hungarian born John von Neumann “a Pioneer of Modern Computer Science”.