Lihui Wang
Professor in Sustainable Manufacturing
About Lihui Wangs research:
Energy-efficient production, workplace safety and operator-friendly machinery all contribute to sustainability in manufacturing, with a better working environment.
The research over the past 10 years has focused on real-time monitoring and remote control of machines and robots via the internet, vital for distributed manufacturing operations and distant maintenance. Another thread of the research is planning dynamic operations adaptively according to the availability and capability of machines and the competence of operators.
The recent research has been devoted to minimising energy consumption of machines and robots, and safe human-robot collaborative assembly. The latter combines the accuracy of robots and the flexibility of humans in one assembly line to improve productivity. Human safety is protected by actively moving robots away from possible collisions with humans while conducting assembly.
The benefits of the research are energy saving, improved productivity and ergonomic working conditions, contributing to sustainable manufacturing.