This research thrust explores the application of good design principles and advanced technology in areas such as those relating to system integration and optimization, smart systems, clean and sustainable technologies and robotics.
Projects under this thrust includes:-
V-Tetros: Design of Nested Reconfigurable Glass Façade Cleaning Robots for High-Rise Buildings
PI: Dr Mohan Rajesh Elara
Collaborator: Dr Tan Ning
Worldwide, city skylines are increasingly dominated by multi-storey buildings with glass facades. The process of cleaning them have remained more or less the same: they are labor intensive and often dangerous, especially in adverse weather and wind conditions. There is hence a recent trend to develop and deploy robotic systems for cleaning vertical glass facades in skyscrapers. However, numerous research challenges remain that are associated with mechanism design, safety, autonomous capabilities, and human robot interaction. In this project, we are developing a new class of nested reconfigurable glass facade cleaning robots, V-Tetros, to overcome these challenges. Our novel design utilizes individual robots with distinctive reconfiguration characteristics (intra-reconfigurability) capable of combining with other homogeneous/ heterogeneous robots (inter-reconfigurability). The project is set to make significant research contribution in the areas of reconfigurable design, modular mechanisms, control, and human robot interaction.
Gbps Wireless Communications and Applications
PI: Prof Yeo Kiat Seng
Currently, the fiber optic network is the best choice to fulfill long distance and high data rate communications. However, the fiber based network is expensive and difficult to splice. In addition, it requires big budget to build and maintain and it is hard to upgrade when finished. In this project, a new wireless communication system using 60GHz millimeter-wave band will be designed and implemented for smart cities. The proposed design focuses on the multi-gigabit outdoor building-to-building data transfer applications up to a distance of 1,000m. This will be the first gigabit wireless communication system in the world that can transmit and receive data over a long distance. The proposed system provides an alternative solution to upgrade existing networks without introducing any building renovation or external network laying works.
