UT researchers Herman van der Kooij and Allard Mosk are to receive Vici grants of €1.5 million, announced the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research today. Van der Kooij will use his grant for research into a flexible robotic suit that will offer paralysed people support so that they can walk. Mosk will use the grant for research into retrieving information about images from diffused light.
Herman van der Kooij
Herman van der Kooij is a professor in the Biomechanical Engineering department at the MIRA research institute and the Faculty of Engineering Technology. According to Van der Kooij, the flexible robotic suit represents the next step towards the development of wearable exoskeletons. Existing exoskeletons are relatively heavy, cumbersome and large and are not user-friendly. "Hinges and rods mean that it is not easy for patients to wear existing exoskeletons," explains Van der Kooij. "They are more like robots, rather than suits in which to walk. We want to do something about this."
Van der Kooij will therefore be using the grant to develop a supple robotic suit that will help paralysed people to walk. The idea is for the suit to be put on in the same way you would put on a pair of trousers. The project is being carried out in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology, where Van der Kooij also works one day a week, and with Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University.
Allard Mosk
Allard Mosk, associate professor of the MESA+ Complex Photonic Systems (COPS) chair, will be using his grant for fundamental research into the retrieval of information about images from diffused light. If you send light through a material that scatters light (materials such as skin or paper), the information about images contained in that light is generally lost. This means that you cannot see what is behind that material. Mosk is working on a new method for obtaining this information. "The method breaks with all other imaging techniques used until now. Through my research, I want to look at things you would not normally be able to look at, but then in a non-destructive way." The solution lies in the light impulses Mosk uses. "We are able to shape light so that it answers specific questions about an object, such as whether the object is long or round, smooth or spiny."
The research is of a fundamental nature, but the knowledge acquired could be applied in very many different fields, according to Mosk. An example is looking deep into nanostructures, such as microchips. ASML is a company that is particularly interested in the possible applications for this research and is making a post-doc position available, so that the transition from research to technological development is reinforced.
Other possible applications are medical imaging techniques for looking through the skin, or even methods for looking through the layers of paint on paintings. Mosk will be using the grant in order to take on two doctoral candidates and two post-docs. This is the third Vici grant awarded to the COPS chair: Willem Vos and Pepijn Pinkse were previous successful applicants.
Vici grants
Vici grants are awarded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research to individual senior researchers. The grants aim to allow researchers to carry out their research for the next five years and to build their own research teams. A total of 216 researchers submitted a proposal for this round of grants and of these 36 were actually awarded grants, equating to 17% of all applicants.
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