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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Ultra-Robotics for Healthcare: Challenges and Opportunities<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Monday, March 24<sup>th</sup> at 11:00 a.m.<br>N355, Engineering Building 1<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Ning Xi<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Michigan State University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>East Lansing, Michigan, USA<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>The City University of Hong Kong<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Hong Kong, China<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Abstract<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Past decades have witnessed how robotics revolutionized the industry, creating great prosperities in the world by increasing efficiency and productivity. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, globalization of the world economy and the rapid development of new technologies including information technology, nanotechnology and biomedical technology have presented robotics with new challenges and opportunities. Ultra-robotics is a new technology that can break traditional dimensionality limitations of automation, thus bringing it to unprecedented ultra-environments such as remote, nano and biomedical settings. The development of information technology has established a new cyber infrastructure. Robots are the essential tools to interface the cyber infrastructure with the physical world, which is the key to the new applications in the healthcare such as remote diagnostics and treatment and point-care. Furthermore, nanotechnology, which enables us to build devices and systems at enormously smaller scales are bringing fundamental changes to disciplines such as engineering, chemistry, medicine, biology and physics. Furthermore, ultra-robotics has great potential as a critical enabling technology in drug discovery for the pharmaceutical industry. Over the past decade, the pharmaceutical industry has been facing daunting challenges in scientific and technological innovations as a consequence of the increasing costs in the drug discovery process, the unmet medical needs and government regulations. It is evident that scientific innovations and development of new technologies such as ultra-robotics to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the drug discovery are essential to meet such challenges. The development of ultra-robotics has posed new challenges and difficulties from system modeling, analysis, and design to sensing, actuation, control and integration. In this talk the recent development in ultra-robotics will be presented with emphasis on applications in Internet-based robots for telemedicine, nano manufacturing and biomedicine. Theoretical foundations, implementation schemes and application examples will be discussed. The talk will conclude with discussions on challenges and opportunities in ultra-robotics and ultra-automation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Biography<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Ning Xi received his D.Sc. degree in Systems Science and Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA in December 1993. He is University Distinguished Professor, the John D. Ryder Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of Robotics and Automation Laboratory at Michigan State University. Currently, he is on-leave from Michigan State University and serves as Chair Professor of Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Robotics and Automation at the City University of Hong Kong. He served as the founding head of the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong (2011-2013). Dr. Xi received the Best Paper Award in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in August, 1995, and the Best Paper Award in the 1998 Japan-USA Symposium on Flexible Automation. Dr. Xi was awarded the first Early Academic Career Award by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society in May, 1999. He also received The Best Paper Award of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering in 2007. Dr. Xi was awarded SPIE Nano Engineering Award in 2007. In addition, he is a recipient of US National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Dr. Xi is a fellow of IEEE. He also served as the President of IEEE Nanotechnology Council (2010-2011), a member of Administrative Committee of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (2013-2015). He is the general chair of 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. His research interests include robotics, manufacturing automation, nano sensors and devices, system biology, and intelligent control and systems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>