Dr Ali Ghanbari
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Dr Ghanbari teaches across a range of engineering subjects for our school. His background and particular expertise is in Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on control of microrobots for biomedical applications. Ali is interested in how to make and model intelligent devices at small scale. He has been a researcher in ETH Zurich, DGIST and University of Leeds and served in multiple teaching positions. He has over ten years of experience working in automotive industry. Ali is also a member of Jost Institute where he supervises postgraduate projects.
Dr Ghanbari is a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering. He is involved in teaching and tutoring multiple modules in the school. Ali teaches Mechanical Engineering Systems, Advanced Engineering Systems, Engineering Design, Engineering Analysis, Engineering Mathematics, etc. He also serves as a supervisor for master and bachelor projects. He is research active in the areas of microrobotics for biomedical application, soft robotics, soft sensors and modelling dynamics and control. Dr Ghanbari supervises bachelor, master, PhD and internship students for performing their research projects.
Dr Ghanbari joined us in 2020. He graduated with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology in 2011. During his PhD, Ali developed a ciliary swimming microrobot as a novel platform for propulsion at microscale. Then, he joined Biomicrorobotics Lab at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) as a postdoctoral research fellow.
In 2012, he was a guest researcher at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich. At DGIST and ETH, Dr Ghanbari worked on control of magnetic swimming microrobots for applications of cell/drug delivery. He fabricated 3D bio-scaffold micro-structures using a 3D laser lithography method. He could control these magnetic microrobots in the fluid and demonstrated their potential for cell transportation.
Dr Ghanbari served as an Assistant Professor at Tafresh University from 2018-2019 and worked on bioinspired control of micro-/nanorobots. Then, he joined University of Leeds as a Research Fellow in 2019 where he performed research on soft Robotics and soft sensors. Ali has published his research results in high-impact factor journals including Advanced Materials, Smart Materials and Structures, and Sensors. He has also published two book chapters.
Dr Ghanbari has also more than ten years of experience working in industry as an engineer and manager mostly in automotive companies. He has also served as a reviewer for different journals including IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems and IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics.
- Best Bachelor Thesis, 2002
- Micro/Nanorobotics
- Control of Magnetic Microrobots
- Soft Sensors
- Thin Films for Biomedical Applications
- Micro/Nanofabrication
Dr Ghanbari's research has been focused on dynamic modelling and control of swimming microrobots for applications of cell/drug delivery. To account for the inherent uncertainty in the dynamic parameters of artificial microswimmers, he utilized a new algorithm based on time-delay-estimation (TDE) to control magnetically actuated microrobots using visual feedback and tracking the robots.
Ali implemented closed-loop control of the microrobot trajectory for three types of robots: cylindrical, helical, and scaffold-type; all of them moving inside water/silicone oil. He developed an analytical model for finding magnetic field and gradients of a set of electromagnetic coils. This was delivered in a computer-based program that could be integrated into simulation to control any type of microrobots. He has experience in fabrication of 3D bio-scaffold structures using a 3D laser lithography method. The scaffold could be used for cell/drug delivery. The cells were cultured with the microrobot to demonstrate biocompatibility and potential for cell transportation. Ali controlled the microrobot inside the fluid using external magnetic actuation. He has also fabricated helical microrobots using the same method and evaluated their efficiency.
In his PhD, inspired by ciliated microorganisms, he introduced a novel swimming microrobot based on artificial cilia. In contrast to the variety of flagella-based swimming microrobots at that time, an artificial microswimmer based on ciliary propulsion had not yet been realised. He worked on dynamic modelling of the microrobot and calculated its dynamic parameters and hydrodynamic efficiency by solving a coupled elastic-fluidic nonlinear system numerically. Furthermore, he demonstrated swimming of the microrobot using magnetic actuation of artificial cilia. By designing cilia properties and magnetic field kinematics, nonreciprocal effective and recovery strokes for cilia were obtained that nicely mimic natural cilia beating. By solving the coupled magnetic-elastic-hydrodynamic problem which led to a system of nonlinear partial differential equations, he calculated dynamic parameters of the artificial microswimmer and showed that it can swim using a prespecified magnetic actuation.
Dr Ghanbari has also fabricated a soft capacitive sensor for health monitoring applications. These high-performance sensors include electrode, dielectric and protective layers. Using a batch fabrication method, he could fabricate highly sensitive thin soft sensors for biomedical applications. Ali is interested in making these sensors at even smaller scale down to few micrometres.
Publications
- Kim S., Qiu F., Kim S., Ghanbari A., Moon C., Zhang L., Nelson B.J., and Choi H., “Fabrication and characterization of magnetic microrobots for three-dimensional cell culture and targeted transportation,” Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, No. 41, pp. 5829, 2013.
- Ghanbari A., Chang P. H., Nelson B. J., and Choi H. “Magnetic actuation of a cylindrical microrobot using time-delay-estimation closed-loop control: modeling and experiments,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 23, 035013, 2014.
- Ghanbari A. and Bahrami M., “A novel swimming microrobot based on artificial cilia for biomedical applications,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Vol. 63, pp. 399-416, 2011.
- Ghanbari A. “Bioinspired reorientation strategies for application in micro/nanorobotic control,” Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics, 2020.
Use the links below to view their profiles:
- Ghanbari A., Chang P. H., Choi H., and Nelson B. J., “Time delay estimation for control of microrobots under uncertainties,” in Proceedings of IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Wollongong, Australia, July 2013.
- Kim S., Qiu F., Kim S., Ghanbari A., Moon C., Zhang L., Nelson B.J., and Choi H., “Magnetically actuated microstructure for targeted cell transportation,” in Proceedings of 13th IEEE International Conference on Nanotechnology, Beijing, China, August 2013.
- Ghanbari A., Kim S., and Choi H., “Swimming performance of a biomimetic microrobot in low-Reynolds-number flow,” in Proceedings of The 7th World Congress on Biomimetics, Artificial Muscles and Nano-Bio (BAMN2013), Jeju Island, South Korea, August 2013.
- Bahrami M., Imani A., Ghanbari A. and Ebrahimi B., “Robust control of a MEMS optical switch using fuzzy sliding mode,” 2nd International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, and Automation, Shiraz, Iran, December 2011.
- Ghanbari A. and Bahrami M., "Magnetically actuated artificial cilia for a biomedical swimming microrobot," The Actuator 2010, Bremen, Germany, June 2010.
- Ghanbari A. and Bahrami M., "Concept of an in-vivo microrobot for medical applications in space," 59th International Astronautical Congress, Glasgow, Scotland, 2008.
- Ghanbari A. and Bahrami M., "Predicting the effects of dimensional and material stiffness variations on a compliant bistable microrelay performance," Journal of Physics: Conference Series, International MEMS Conference, Vol. 34, pp. 834-839, 2006.
Email: Email:Dr Ali Ghanbari
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