UC Merced Expert 

Having trouble recovering from a knee injury or a stroke? Bothered by noise in an airplane? For these problems and many more, UC Merced mechanical engineering professor Jian-Qiao Sun is working on research answers.

 

He’s worked on the development of smart devices for physical therapy, like a knee brace that can be programmed to the optimal amount of resistance, then adjust that resistance depending on muscle fatigue. Another smart knee brace can be used to evaluate and rehabilitate the gait of recovering stroke patients. These projects rely on modeling of human-machine interactions, nonlinear adaptive controls, sensor and actuator studies and signal processing.

 

Another area of Sun’s research is in acoustic applications like sound-control panels for airplanes, using sandwich configurations of materials for vibration control.

 

And he is seeking new solutions for evaluating the strength of structures subject to earthquake, ocean waves and wind loading excitations. These methods will also be useful in precision machines, manufacturing processes and robots, armed vehicles (land or air), target tracking systems and guidance systems operated in combat or rough environments.

 

Other recent projects have seen Sun’s research group applying their mechanical engineering knowledge to problems from micro flying insect robots to drive-by-wire agricultural machinery.

 

Before joining the faculty at UC Merced in July 2007, Sun was a professor at the University of Delaware. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and his bachelor’s from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China.