(From left) Professor Christopher Chao, Dean of Engineering of HKU and Professor Tetsuya Nagasaka, Dean of School of Engineering of Tohoku University, signed the MoU on behalf of their faculties.
The delegation met with Professor Toshiya Ueki (3rd from right) and Professor Masahiro Yamaguchi (2nd from right) to reinforce the connection between the two universities.
Further to the academic agreement which had been jointly signed by the University of Hong Kong and Tohoku University in March 2019, the Dean of Engineering led a delegation to visit the School of Engineering of Tohoku University for signing a Faculty-level MoU on the exchange programme from year 2019-2020. With this MoU, HKU Engineering students can join the exchange programme to Tohoku University for a semester or full-year from Year 2 onward.
Professor Toshiya Ueki, the Executive Vice President for General Affairs, Financial Affairs and International Relations, and Professor Masahiro Yamaguchi, Vice President for Education Reform and Global Engagement, met with the HKU delegation to reinforce the connection between the two universities.
After the MoU signing, the delegation took the opportunities to visit various research laboratories in Tohoku University. To highlight a few, the group was introduced to the light-weight grippers with minimal servo motors; grippers being able to grab soft and hard objects; robot assistant who can work around human user or dance with human partner and so on. The delegation also met with the research group funded by the ImPACT Programme of the Japanese government which focuses on the development of new robots for disaster response and recovery.
Apart from the abovementioned robotic research initiatives, the delegation also had the chance to reach out to various research teams of the School of Engineering in Tohoku University including those which are working on tribology, city ventilation modelling, energy-saving cooling materials, disaster mitigation after tsunami, and water resources monitoring and policy response.
Professor Kazuhiro Kosuge (1st from right) explained how the robots can manoeuvre alongside with human.
Professor Satoshi Tadokoro (1st from left) illustrated several robot prototypes deployed to perform search and rescue after earthquakes, and regular inspection on infrastructure.