Plenary talk II

Motivated by the needs to accommodate size/shape variations in non-traditional robotics and emerging human-centered applications, this talk presents recently developed novel methods (referred to here as magflexonics) that enable uses of embedded magnetic fields for cost-effective design/control of flexible structures while allowing for natural or engineered compliance. As a medium of energy conversion and signal transmission, magnetic fields exist everywhere in our daily life, and have contributed to the rapid advances in computing, communication, and information technologies. Magnetic fields are also increasingly used in a spectrum of modern mechatronic devices, instrumentation and actuation because they are instantaneous and invariant to pressure, temperature and other environmental factors. This talk reviews the past and present state-of-the-arts of magnetics for precision mechatronics, and presents recently developed magflexonics for applications that require multi degrees of freedom motions. Magflexonics, which unlike traditional approaches, take advantages of low-cost computational intelligence into design, requires no explicit position sensor or information for real-time feedback control. Selected examples are given to help illustrate these impacts and yet to cover a wide variety of robotic, automation and mechatronic applications. The intended audience of this talk includes engineers, undergraduates, graduate students and faculty with technology backgrounds, but not necessarily in magnetics. Te objective is to stimulate discussions of emerging magflexonics and its potential applications to address emerging problems facing society in a rapidly changing world.