Public Research Seminar by Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust, HKUST(GZ) - Intelligent Materials by Design: Morphing Structures and Medical Robotics

Life on Earth has evolved from simple organisms to incredibly complex, adaptive creatures. The transformation—from static, immobile forms to dynamic, responsive creatures—provides a fundamental insight: adaptability enables functionality. Resembling living organisms, stimuli-responsive materials respond to external stimuli, such as heat, light, and magnetic/electric fields, performing as sensors and actuators. These materials find vast applications from soft robotics to precise medicine and reconfigurable mechanical systems.

This talk highlights several intelligent, mechanics-guided systems that demonstrate multifunctionality across scales and environments. A Kresling origami robotic arm utilizes multistable origami geometry with folding/deploying capability to achieve programmable stretching, bending, and twisting for shape reconfiguration. An amphibious origami robot can also navigate complex terrain through multimodal locomotion and enables controlled drug delivery using magnetically actuated folding. To explore new capabilities for minimally invasive endovascular interventions, a millimeter-scale magnetic robot is designed to achieve record-breaking high-speed navigation through confined, tubular environments.