We work at the intersection of mechanics, materials, and robotics, with the overarching goal of creating adaptive robotic systems that are intelligent by design—structures that can sense, respond, and reconfigure autonomously without relying on complex electronics or traditional control algorithms. By integrating nonlinear mechanics with AI-driven design methodologies, we aim to establish the foundations for a new class of adaptive robotic matter: soft machines and metamaterials that harness structural logic, mechanical instabilities, and environmental stimuli to achieve multifunctional performance.

The Principal Investigator

Dr. Mingchao Liu (刘明超) is currently an Assistant Professor at University of Birmingham. Before move to Birmingham, he was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from 2022 to 2023, and a Newton International Fellow at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, sponsored by the Royal Society from 2018 to 2022. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 2018 with a PhD in Engineering from the Department of Engineering Mechanics. During his Ph.D study, he spent six months in 2017 as a visiting research fellow at the University of Sydney under the support of the Endeavour Research Fellowship. Prior to this, He received his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Shandong University in 2013.

Recent News

1. 2025/08: Our paper, ‘Localization of deformation in the central hub of hub-and-spoke kirigami.’, has been published in JMPS.
2. 2025/07: Our paper, ‘Harnessing Discrete Differential Geometry: A Virtual Playground for the Bilayer Soft Robotics.’, has been published in Adv. Intell. Syst..
3. 2025/07: Dr. Liu has been awarded the Florence Price Award for Outstanding Early-Career Academic at the University of Birmingham Founders’ Awards 2025.
4. 2025/06: Our paper, ‘A tutorial on simulating nonlinear behaviors of flexible structures with the discrete differential geometry (DDG) method.’, has been published in Appl. Mech. Rev..
5. 2025/05: Dr. Liu has attended The 31st International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (ICCES2025) in Changsha, China and has been awarded the ICCES Outstanding Young Researcher Award.
6. 2025/05: Our paper, ‘Achieving symmetric snap-through buckling via designed magnetic actuation.’, has been published in Sci. Adv..
7. 2025/05: Our paper, ‘Localized tension–induced giant folding in unstructured elastic sheets.’, has been published in PNAS and Highlighted in the News of the University of Birmingham.
8. 2025/04: Dr. Liu has been awarded the Mike Crisfield Prize for best presentation by UK Association for Computational Mechanics (UKACM).
9. 2025/04: Dr. Liu attended the IUTAM Symposium on Data Driven Mechanics at Cambridge as an invited speaker and presented “Mechanics-Aided Machine Learning for the Design of Snap-Actuated Jumping Robots”.
10. 2025/04: Our paper, ‘Transient asymmetry during elastic snap-through: The interplay between imperfections and oscillations.’, has been published in Phys. Rev. E.
11. 2025/03: Dr. Liu attended the Euromech Colloquium 647 at Glasgow as an invited speaker and presented “Adaptive Folding Matter: From Natural Morphogenesis to Tunable Meta-Ribbons”.
12. 2025/03: Dr. Liu has been awarded the Highly Commended for Outstanding Impact by an Early Career Researcher by the University of Birmingham.
13. 2025/03: Our paper, ‘Morphing matter: from mechanical principles to robotic applications.’, has been awarded the Most Influential Paper Award in Soft Science.
14. 2025/02: Our paper, ‘Inverse Design of Snap-Actuated Jumping Robots Powered by Mechanics-Aided Machine Learning.’, has been published in IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett..
15. 2024/10: Our paper, ‘Snap-through eversion of axisymmetric shells under contact indentation.’, has been published in Proc. Royal Soc. A.
16. 2024/06: Our paper, ‘Transient amplification of broken symmetry in elastic snap-through.’, has been published in Phys. Rev. Lett..
17. 2024/06: Our paper, ‘Exploiting dynamic bifurcation in elastic ribbons for mode skipping and selection.’, has been published in J Mech. Phys. Solids.
18. 2024/05: Our paper, ‘Integration of kinks and creases enables tunable folding in meta-ribbons.’, has been published in Matter and Highlighted in the News of the University of Birmingham.
19. 2024/05: Dr. Liu has been selected as a winner of the Young Scientist Support Grant for The 26th International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM 2024) held in Daegu, Korea on August 25-30, 2024.
20. 2024/04: Our paper, ‘Dehydration-induced corrugated folding in Rhapis excelsa plant leaves.’, has been published in PNAS and Featured in the This week in PNAS and the News of the University of Birmingham.