Xiaobo Tan Receives NSF CAREER Award
Xiaobo Tan, assistant professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received an NSF CAREER Award for his proposal "Dexterous Biomimetic Micromanipulation Using Artificial Muscles: Modeling, Sensing, and Control." Tan’s project lays the foundation for achieving his career goals: to deliver smaller and smarter systems by developing novel modeling and control methodologies, and to train tomorrow’s control engineers with cross-disciplinary perspectives.
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award for new faculty members, recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. Awardees are selected on the basis of creative career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution.
In particular, Tan's proposed research aims to fully realize the potential of ionic polymer-metal composites, informally known as artificial muscles, in the manipulation of delicate microscale objects by developing advanced modeling, sensing, and control strategies. Ionic polymer-metal composites are an emerging class of soft and resilient smart materials that produce large deflections (bending motions) under low voltages. Mimicking biological muscles, these materials can potentially be used to perform sophisticated manipulation tasks, such as the capture and transport of single cells in biological studies, and the assembly of complex micro- and nanostructures in micro-/nanomanufacturing.
Tan will develop faithful mathematical models that capture the essential physics of ionic polymer-metal composites and yet are convenient for real-time control design. He will also investigate integrated sensing methods for these materials so that the artificial muscles can precisely deliver the desired motion and force. Tan plans to build a biomimetic manipulator consisting of a three-link arm and a four-finger microhand, with ionic polymer-metal composites functioning simultaneously as structures, actuators, and sensors, and demonstrate his research results through dexterous manipulation of biological cells using this system.
Through collaboration with industry, the developed control and sensing schemes will be applied to a number of artificial muscle–based biomedical applications (for example, implantable micropumps for drug delivery). Integrating with the research program, Tan will establish an interdisciplinary curriculum on smart materials and systems, including a senior design program involving industrial partners (he has secured seed funding from SPIE) and a graduate course on smart sensors and actuators in micro- and nanosystems. Tan will also work closely with the Diversity Programs Office and the Sloan Engineering Program to involve women and minority students in developing biomimetic microrobots; he will further use these microrobots as appealing hands-on educational kits to inspire the interest of K-12 students in science and engineering.