Keynote Speaker

This lecture explores the innovative applications of AI-powered e-skin sensors to enhance the human interaction experience with the metaverse – applications that present exciting possibilities for immersive experiences. AI e-skin sensors integrated into wearable devices such as gloves or suits enable metaverse avatars to interpret and respond to human gestures, movements, and emotions, elevating the human immersion experience with the meta-world. If coupled with appropriate actuators, the gloves or suits may also enable users to feel haptic feedback, temperature changes, and pressure variations while interacting with virtual objects.

We will discuss various materials and fabrication techniques to create e-skin sensors with highly responsive motion recognition capabilities, including the challenges associated with real-time sensory information capture and transmission. Moreover, we will also review the effectiveness of several AI-related algorithms in performing motion recognition using various e-skin sensors, spanning from recognizing facial micro-expressions, throat vibrations, and fingerprint-based tactile sensations to muscle activities of the limbs.

This lecture offers an insightful exploration of AI e-skin sensors and their potential to reshape human-metaverse interaction technologies. Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of this emerging technology and its implications for the future of immersive experiences in the metaverse.

Wen Jung LI is currently a Chair Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and concurrently serving as Vice-President (Talent and International Strategy) of the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). He was with the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), from 1997 to 2011. Before joining CUHK, he held research and development positions at the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA), The Aerospace Corporation (El Segundo, CA), and Silicon Microstructures Inc. (Fremont, CA). Prof. Li’s academic honors include IEEE Fellow, ASME Fellow, AIAA (Asia-Pacific AI Association) Fellow, and 100 Talents of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He served as the President of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council in 2016 and 2017. His research group has published more than 430 technical papers related to MEMS, nanotechnology, and robotics, and some of his research results have been published in high-impact journals such as Nature Communications, Science Advances, Nature Methods, Nature Machine Intelligence, Advanced Science, IEEE Internet of Things J., etc. Prof. Li received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Southern California in 1987 and 1989, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree from UCLA in 1997. His research interest includes bio-micro-electromechanical systems, super-resolution microscopy, and intelligent cyber-physical sensors.