Intelligent, flexible and connected systems in products and production
Soft Squishy Electronic Skin by Prof. Dr. Ravinder Dahiya
The miniaturization led advances in microelectronics over 50 years have revolutionized our lives through fast computing and communication. Recent advances in the field are propelled by applications such as electronic skin in robotics, wearable systems, and healthcare technologies etc. Often these applications require electronics to be soft and Squishy so as to conform to 3D surfaces. These requirements call for new methods to realize sensors, actuators electronic devices and circuits on unconventional substrates such as plastics, papers and elastomers. This lecture will present various approaches (over different time and dimension scales) followed for obtaining distributed electronic, sensing, actuation and computing devices on soft and flexible substrates, especially in context with the tactile or electronic skin (eSkin). These approaches range from distributed off-the-shelf electronics integrated on flexible printed circuit boards, to novel alternatives such as eSkin constituents obtained by printed nanowires, graphene and ultra-thin chips, etc. The technology behind such sensitive flexible and squishy electronic systems is also the key enabler for numerous emerging fields such as internet of things, smart cities and mobile health etc. This lecture will also discuss how the flexible electronics research may unfold in the future.
Biography
Ravinder Dahiya is Professor of Electronics and Nanoengineering and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Fellow in the School of Engineering at University of Glasgow. He is the Director of Electronic Systems Design Centre (ESDC) and the leader of Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) group. His group conducts fundamental research on high-mobility materials based flexible electronics and electronic skin, and their application in robotics, prosthetics and wearable systems.
Prof. Dahiya has published more than 280 research articles, 4 books (3 at various publication stages), and 14 patents (including 9 submitted). He has given more than 130 invited/plenary talks. He has led many international projects (> £25M) funded by European Commission, EPSRC, The Royal Society, The Royal Academy of Engineering, and The Scottish Funding Council.
He is President-Elect and Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Sensors Council and is on the Editorial Boards of Scientific Reports (Nature Group), and IEEE Sensors Journal. He is also the editor of Cambridge Elements on Flexible and Large Area Electronics. He was the Technical Program Co-Chair (TPC) for IEEE Sensors Conference in 2017 and 2018. He is the Founding General Chair of 2019 IEEE International Conference on Flexible and Printable Sensors and Systems (IEEE FLEPS).
Prof. Dahiya holds EPSRC Fellowship and in past he received Marie Curie Fellowship and Japanese Monbusho Fellowship. He has received several awards and most recent among them are: 2018 Elektra award for best university research in the UK, 2016 IEEE Sensor Council Technical Achievement Award, the 2016 Microelectronic Engineering Young Investigator Award (Elsevier) and 2016 Scottish 40UNDER40. He has received 5 best paper awards in IEEE international conferences.
