Whereas human tissues and organs are mostly soft, wet and bioactive; machines are commonly hard, dry and biologically inert. Merging humans, machines and their intelligence is of imminent importance in addressing grand societal challenges in health, sustainability, security, education and joy of living – all of which manifest during this pandemic of COVID 19. However, interfacing humans and machines is extremely challenging due to their fundamentally contradictory properties. At MIT Zhao Lab, we exploit *soft materials technology* to form long-term, high-efficacy, multi-modal interfaces and convergence between humans and machines. This talk will be focused on the fundamental mechanics that enables the soft materials technology with examples including 1). adhesion – bioadhesives for instant strong adhesion on wet dynamic tissues to replace sutures and staples; 2). fatigue – long-term biocompatible and fatigue-resistant hydrogel coatings for diverse medical devices; 3). actuation – ferromagnetic soft robots for autonomous navigations and operations in cerebral and coronary arteries. The talk will focus on the essential role that mechanics is playing at the AI-robotics-medicine nexus.

Whereas human tissues and organs are mostly soft, wet and bioactive; machines are commonly hard, dry and biologically inert. Merging humans, machines and their intelligence is of imminent importance in addressing grand societal challenges in health, sustainability, security, education and joy of living – all of which manifest during this pandemic of COVID 19. However, interfacing humans and machines is extremely challenging due to their fundamentally contradictory properties. At MIT Zhao Lab, we exploit *soft materials technology* to form long-term, high-efficacy, multi-modal interfaces and convergence between humans and machines. This talk will be focused on the fundamental mechanics that enables the soft materials technology with examples including 1). adhesion – bioadhesives for instant strong adhesion on wet dynamic tissues to replace sutures and staples; 2). fatigue – long-term biocompatible and fatigue-resistant hydrogel coatings for diverse medical devices; 3). actuation – ferromagnetic soft robots for autonomous navigations and operations in cerebral and coronary arteries. The talk will focus on the essential role that mechanics is playing at the AI-robotics-medicine nexus.

Whereas human tissues and organs are mostly soft, wet and bioactive; machines are commonly hard, dry and biologically inert. Merging humans, machines and their intelligence is of imminent importance in addressing grand societal challenges in health, sustainability, security, education and joy of living – all of which manifest during this pandemic of COVID 19. However, interfacing humans and machines is extremely challenging due to their fundamentally contradictory properties. At MIT Zhao Lab, we exploit *soft materials technology* to form long-term, high-efficacy, multi-modal interfaces and convergence between humans and machines. This talk will be focused on the fundamental mechanics that enables the soft materials technology with examples including 1). adhesion – bioadhesives for instant strong adhesion on wet dynamic tissues to replace sutures and staples; 2). fatigue – long-term biocompatible and fatigue-resistant hydrogel coatings for diverse medical devices; 3). actuation – ferromagnetic soft robots for autonomous navigations and operations in cerebral and coronary arteries. The talk will focus on the essential role that mechanics is playing at the AI-robotics-medicine nexus.

 


Mechanics of Soft Materials at the Ai-Robotics-Medicine Nexus

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

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