Meet our new professors
Professor Norbert Hoffmann, Director of the Rolls-Royce Vibration University Technology Centre
The lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance – book your seat via Eventbrite (external link).
To interact about this lecture on Twitter, use the hashtag #goodvibes
This event is being live-streamed via the Imperial YouTube channel.
Abstract
In engineering, as in life, everything is dynamic, and an understanding of motion and vibration is key to the design of modern mechanical technology. Today’s engineers are increasingly working with non-linear, pattern forming, self-organisational systems, whose evolving behaviour, responsive to the surrounding environment, demonstrates the first signs of a mechanical intelligence.
However, whilst we come to terms with these new smart systems, Silicon Valley companies are already addressing modern day technological challenges such as self-driving cars with their own intelligent engineering, emerging from data science and computation technology. What can we learn from the ‘encroachment’ of new disciplines more used to these intelligent systems, such as data analytics, or even neuroscience?
As we enter a possible new industrial revolution based on the cyber physical systems of the Internet of Things, this lecture will explore a paradigm shift in mechanical engineering and revisit the role of mechanics and dynamics within this new reality.
Biography
Norbert Hoffmann is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial. His research interests relate to nonlinear vibrations and waves in engineering structures like aeroengines, aircraft, vehicles, ships and offshore platforms, wave energy converters and similar applications.
Before joining Imperial Norbert was Professor of Structural Dynamics at Hamburg University of Technology. He also held several positions at the Bosch corporation related to noise and vibration, electronics and battery systems, and systems related to autonomous driving and safety. Originally he had obtained a Dr.rer.nat. on pattern formation in fluids.
At Imperial Norbert is Director of the Rolls-Royce Vibration University Technology Centre. He also receives research funding from governments and a number of companies, organises and presents at international workshops and conferences and is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Vibration and Control.