HBO technician position in advanced materials and haptics

Imagine you could feel the images on your phone or touch your partners hand on a videocall. Soft robotics is a relatively new subfield of robotics that could make this happen by constructing robotic functions from smart compliant materials. Soft technologies and integrated soft systems can revolutionize the use of robotic devices, for instance in applications where elastic versatility and safe human/machine interactions are needed. We foresee that we can bridge this gap (between humans and machines) by making stimuli-responsive materials that we can safely feel, sense, and experience. They can be used as stand-alone and autonomous devices, but also be applied as coating or integrated with electronics or even with biological material to perform functions not accessible otherwise.

Projects description
You will be joining a multidisciplinary research group, where we develop responsive materials that address the advancing needs in man-machine communication, specialized medicine and miniaturized mechanics. More information can be found at www.danqingliu.nl .

A key aspect of our projects is to translate molecular effects to macroscopic phenomena which, in turn translate into (robotic) devices, and especially haptic applications. You will join the 'haptics'-team where you will be responsible for developing and synthesizing the smart materials and building/testing haptic devices based on these materials. Consequently, the approach to successfully develop these materials/devices must be multidisciplinary, containing many aspects from materials design/development, photonics, electronics and mechanics.