Dr An Liang Elected Royal Society of Chemistry Fellow

Dr An Liang, Associate Professor of PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), a professional society based in the United Kingdom with over 50,000 members worldwide. Founded in 1841, RSC is the largest organization in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. RSC partners with industry and academia, advises governments on policy, and promotes the talent, collaboration, innovation, information and ideas that lead to great advances in science. The designation Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) is given to elected Fellows who have made significant contributions to the chemical sciences.  Becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry is a great recognition of Dr An’s contributions to the advanced energy conversion and storage field. The names of newly elected Fellows are published each year in The Times (London). For more information on the Royal Society of Chemistry, please visit the official website here. To read more about Dr An Liang and his research, please visit his faculty page here.

Dr Sun Yuxiang selected as Global Top Chinese Young Scholar in Artificial Intelligence

On April 28, 2022, the world's first list of High Potential AI Chinese Young Scholars released by Baidu was officially announced. Dr Sun Yuxiang, a young scholar from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was included into the list (in the field of AI+X, a total of 50 young scholars from all over the world were selected)! The selection is based on 186,963 papers and the information of 89,324 scholars from all over the world. By using big data mining technology with three metrics (academic performance, academic influence and academic potential index), 100 high-potential young scholars were selected from the classical fields of AI (Machine Learning, Data Mining, Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing), and 50 high-potential young scholars were selected from the interdisciplinary fields of AI (AI+X). The 150 young scholars have made outstanding contributions in the fields of AI. Their research focuses on cutting-edge hot topics in academic and industry, such as autonomous driving, quantum computing, dialogue systems, and biological computing, etc. According to reports, the 150 AI Chinese Young Scholars are from 98 top universities or institutions around the world. The top 10 universities or institutions with the most selected young scholars are Tsinghua University (8 scholars), Google (8 scholars), Chinese Academy of Sciences (7 scholars), Microsoft (including Microsoft Research Asia, 7 scholars), University of Hong Kong (4 scholars), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (3 scholars), Carnegie Mellon University (3 scholars), University of California San Diego (3 scholars), Columbia University (3 scholars), Facebook (3 scholars). The selection of the AI Chinese Young Scholars aims to encourage young scholars in the fields of artificial intelligence to make more influential achievements, and to identify high-potential and high-influential Chinese young technical leaders. Dr Sun joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2020. His is now leading a research lab with 1 Postdoctoral research fellow, 7 PhD students, and 2 Master students. One PhD student successfully won the highly-competitive Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS) award in the 2021/2022 academic year. Dr Sun currently serves as an associate editor of the top-tier robotics journal and conferences: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), and IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).   References: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/eNcKhmhJaZ20t-0P_yusJA https://xueshu.baidu.com/usercenter/index/aischolar2022

108th Departmental Advisory Committee Meeting

The 108th Departmental Advisory Committee (DAC) meeting was held online on 18 March 2022, under the chairmanship of Ir Dr Angus HW Cheung, Chief Executive Officer of Aerovision Technology Limited. We were grateful to have new committee members joining us. They were: Dr Vanessa Au (Principal Environmental Protection Officer (Regional West), Environmental Protection Department, HKSAR Prof. Chen Guohua (Chair Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PolyU) Miss Chan Hoi Yi (Full-time BEng Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PolyU) Miss Jiang Qian (Full-time PhD Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PolyU) The DAC is comprised of 2 ex-officio members (i.e., the Faculty Dean and Department Head), 9 local and overseas members from the academia, industry and professionals as well as 3 internal members and 2 student representatives from the Department. The meeting kicked off with the Head Prof. Su Zhongqing’s report on the latest updates of the Department. Following up on the 107th DAC meeting, various measures and actions have been taken. Responses to the last DAC advice were summarized in this meeting. Since the last DAC, the Department has organized a number of key events, received remarkable research achievements, surged in world rankings by ME subject. The growth and development in various aspects were shared in the meeting. On the other hand, we reviewed the student intake, graduate employment, budget and staffing. It was a very fruitful meeting as members, with their wide range of expertise, had provided valuable advice and constructive suggestions to the Department for future development in teaching and learning, research and consultancy, and strategic plans.

Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering 2022

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is pleased to announce that three distinguished graduates are awarded the “Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering 2022” in recognition of their professional/entrepreneurial achievements and significant contributions to the Department, PolyU and the wider community. Their remarkable achievements and valuable contributions have earned them well-deserved honour and respectful recognition. Congratulations to the following awardees!

ME Young Scholar secures Environment and Conservation Fund to conduct research on smart robot

Dr Henry Chu Kar Hang, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), has secured a fund from the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) for the research project “GPS-assisted Smart Robot with Self-exploration Ability for Litter Pick-up and Sorting on Curved Hillsides”. Robots have been serving us in many sectors to improve the quality of our lives. Nevertheless, majority of commercial robots mainly focus on applications for indoor use with large market sizes, opening a gap in some less explored areas. In this project, Dr Chu and his research team will develop a first-of-a-kind litter picking robot and its supporting system to work alongside with cleaning workers to reduce their workload and the risk of injury, while preserving the natural scenery and environment in Hong Kong.  The Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) was set up by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to provide funding support for educational, research and other projects and activities in relation to environmental and conservation matters. Every year, more than 170 applications are received, with only 25% of them are supported.

ME Young Scholar secures Innovation and Technology Fund to conduct research on autonomous driving

Dr Sun Yuxiang, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), has been awarded a HK$899,300 Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) grant by the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) for a research project entitled "A Study on RGB-Thermal Adaptive Fusion-based Semantic Understanding of Complex Day-and-Night Environments for Autonomous Driving". ITC also provides additional full financial support for this project for up to 4 research talents including research assistants (up to HK$21,000 per month) and postdoctoral research fellows (up to HK$32,000 per month). Semantic understanding of traffic environments is important to ensure safe driving of autonomous vehicles. It can tell a self-driving car which pixels correspond to free spaces or obstacles in the pictures taken by an on-vehicle visual camera, so that the car can effectively avoid obstacles and safely navigate. However, the current semantic understanding solutions usually use RGB visible-light cameras. When the ambient light is insufficient at night, or there are glares caused by on-coming headlight, the existing solutions are difficult to produce satisfactory results. To address this problem, this project proposes to design a solution based on adaptive fusion of RGB and thermal images, so that robust semantic understanding could be achieved in complex day-and-night environments. It is very encouraging to see young scholar from our department to be funded by important funding of ITC to conduct research in cutting-edge technologies.

The 7th ME Research Presentation Competition

The 7th PolyU Mechanical Engineering Research Presentation Competition was successfully held at the Lecture Theatre in the Jockey Club Innovation Tower, PolyU, on 7 Jan 2022. It is an annual event for research students to display their research project results and share knowledge with the PolyU community. The competition emphasized academic pitching skills, with an aim to train research students to explain academic ideas to peers and non-experts clearly. This year, we invited 13 academics from 3 main discipline areas (Control, Acoustics and Dynamics; Materials and Solid Mechanics; Thermofluids and Combustion) to form a panel of judges to select the best presenters. Besides, we welcomed other research students and PolyU staff members to join the event and vote for the People’s Choice award. Nineteen research student participants each delivered a high-impact brief in a 3-minute presentation. With their professional and animated presentations, those academic and technical terms were no longer distant to the layman. Most of the participants demonstrated outstanding academic pitching skills. The panel of judges was impressed by the ever-improving performance of the participants this year. Their presentations appealed to a large audience to vote for them. After the oral presentations, participants interacted with the audience in the research posters exhibition. Displayed posters not only highlighted their research project results, but it was also an occasion for participants to convey their ideas, communicate with viewers and professionals, and let their talents be known. Congratulations on their fabulous presentations and excellent research work! Champion Student: Mr ARIF Muhammad Irsalan Supervisor: Dr Randolph LEUNG Title: Airfoil Tonal Noise Reduction by Means of Localized Flow-Induced Panel Vibration Champion Student: Mr GUO Jiaming Supervisor: Dr JIAO Zengbao Title: Precipitation Mechanisms and Mechanical Properties of New High-entropy Alloys Strengthened by Dual Precipitation 1st Runner-Up Student: Mr FU Jin Supervisor: Prof. FU Mingwang Title: Additively manufactured metals and lattice structures by micro laser powder bed fusion for mechanical applications 2nd Runner-Up and People’s Choice Student: Ms JIANG Qian Supervisor: Dr TANG Hui Title: Optimization on therapeutical efficacy in magnetic hyperthermia 2nd Runner-Up Student: Mr YANG Yi Supervisor: Dr RUAN Haihui Title: Investigation of glassy carbon structure formation--experiments and modeling

ME Staff received Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2021

Warmest congratulations to the following staff members on receiving the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2021.  Dr An Liang Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Outstanding Award in Research and Scholarly Activities: Outstanding Young Researcher (Individual) 2021 Prof. Fu Mingwang Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Merit Award in Research and Scholarly Activities: Outstanding Researcher (Individual) 2021 Dr Choy Yat Sze Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Merit Award in Teaching (Individual) 2021 Dr David Navarro Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Merit Award in Teaching (Individual) 2021   Since 2003, the Faculty Research Grant Achievement Award has been set up by the Faculty Research Committee to recognize the outstanding performance of FENG academic staff members in securing external competitive research grants. Besides, the Faculty Awards in Teaching, Research and Scholarly Activities, and Services have also been established to encourage and recognize excellent practices in respective areas. Winners of the awards have demonstrated a high level of professionalism and dedication, and contributed to the achievements of the Faculty.

Establishment of Biel-PolyU Glass Research Joint Laboratory

Dr Ruan Haihui, Associate Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at PolyU, has received an industrial support of 5 million HKD from the Biel Crystal (HK) Manufactory Limited for collaborative research on precision glass manufacturing. The upcoming technologies have called for more usage of curved cover glasses in many areas including smartphones, wearable electronics, VR/AR glasses, and electronic vehicles. Such needs stem from the fact that human-machine interfaces must be transparent and anti-scratch. While glass covers can be thermoformed to have curved profiles that suit such needs, precision glass thermoforming is still extremely difficult owing to various quality issues arising from the lack of detailed know-how of the manufacturing process and in-depth knowledge in glass science. In the past decade, the development of a manufacturing process for curved glass covers was extremely time-consuming and costly owing to enormous trials and errors; therefore, an upgrade to a computation-based process development protocol is urgently needed. To lay such a foundation for the industrial partner and the glass manufacturing industry, we establish the Biel-PolyU Glass Research Joint Laboratory (伯恩光學 - 香港理工大學玻璃研究聯合實驗室) to develop: computational models that predict stress buildup, relaxation, and deformation in chemical strengthening, computational protocols that assist the design of molds to compensate form errors due to shrinkage and chemical strengthening, and novel molding materials and mold manufacturing technology that keep the transparency of thermoformed glass and ensure high-volume production.

Dr Zhang Xiao recognised amongst the World’s Most Highly Cited Researchers in 2021

Congratulations to Dr Zhang Xiao being one of the eight academics from PolyU who have been acknowledged in the "2021 Highly Cited Researchers" list by Clarivate Analytics. The list identifies the most influential scholars around the world for their exceptional research performance, determined by the publication of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations in each respective field. Approximately 6,600 researchers across the globe were named Highly Cited Researchers in 2021. The inclusion of our academics in the list is a testament to the University’s pursuit of research excellence and our impact on society. The department is proud of Dr Zhang’s outstanding achievement in particular at such an early career stage.   Read more at Clarivate