2021 International Workshop on Bionic Engineering (IWBE 2021) was held online

The 2021 International Workshop on Bionic Engineering (IWBE 2021) and the 4th International Workshop on Biorobotics & Bioengineering organized by the ISBE was successfully held online on September 16-17, 2021. The workshop was jointly hosted by the University of Manchester and Jilin University. Over 200 delegates from more than 20 countries attended the workshop. Dr. Thomas Stegmaier, the President of ISBE from DITF Denkendorf, Prof. Zhihui Zhang, the General Secretary of ISBE from Jilin University, and Prof. Lei Ren, the Deputy General Secretary of ISBE from the University of Manchester, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony chaired by Prof. Guowu Wei from University of Salford.

The workshop focused on the topics of machinery and materials, bionic healthcare engineering, biologically inspired robotics, life-like sensing, actuation and computation, and biomimetic design methodologies. The aims of the workshop were to provide a sound international exchange and cooperation platform for researchers in bionics, and to promote deep integration in bionic fields, especially in basic research and engineering application in the field of healthcare. The workshop had set up 2 parallel sessions, including 3 plenaries, 18 keynotes and more than 70 oral presentations.

During the workshop, Prof. Mohan Edirisinghe FREng from University College London, Prof. Brian Davies FREng from Imperial College London and Prof. Darwin Caldwell FREng from Stituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) had delivered plenary speeches on manufacturing for healthcare, cost-effective robotic surgery and exoskeletons for industrial (occupational) application. Future directions of the biomedical engineering research were also proposed in their speeches.

The IWBE 2021 has attracted more interests from the members around the world. The participants had a detailed communication and discussion on the frontier fields such as biomimetic sustainable design, bio-inspired liquid gating technology, superhydrophobic functional surfaces, interfacial adhesion of hydrogels, reversible adhesive materials, etc.

At the award ceremony, the best paper awards and best presentation awards were announced. 6 scholars respectively from Max Planck Institute (Germany), University of Manchester (UK), University of Auckland (New Zealand), Vienna University of Technology (Austria), DITF Denkendorf (Germany) won the awards. Prof. Julian F. V. Vincent, the emeritus President of ISBE delivered speeches to affirm the achievements of the winners and expressed the expectations for the future development of bionics.

The IWBE 2021 had provided an important platform for the experts and scholars around the world to share their ideas and achievements in bionics, and established more extensive relations for future exchanges, cooperation and collaborative innovation. It is of great significance to promote the development of bionic discipline especially in energy, materials, advanced manufacturing and healthcare fields.