Human and Physical Asset Digital Twins

Protecting and Enhancing the Performance of our Physical and Human Assets with Novel Sensing and Cybermodeling Methods

Our Mission:

Advance stimuli-responsive materials and inverse methods to safeguard and enhance the capabilities of our structural and human assets

We are the Active, Responsive, Multifunctional, and Ordered-materials Research (ARMOR) Laboratory at UC San Diego, led by Prof. Ken Loh. We are a diverse team of graduate and undergrad students and post-doctoral researchers that work collaboratively across multiple disciplines to advance innovative research ideas and to develop new technologies. We actively partner with academic scholars, National Lab researchers, government agencies, commercial entities, and stakeholders to transition new technologies and ideas to practical use. 

We conduct both fundamental and applied research related to physical asset protection, human performance, and human-structure interactions. We aim to train the next generation of multidisciplinary engineering workforce through our hands-on student mentorship and classroom courses that feature the latest research. We develop new stimuli-responsive and multifunctional materials, prototype new sensing, noncontact imaging, and wireless measurement technologies, implement machine learning algorithms and numerical simulations, and test prototypes in operationally relevant environments.

Our physical structures and human assets are susceptible to different types of degradation and damage that can adversely impact their health, safety, and performance. Our goal is for our technologies, algorithms, methods, and systems solutions to not only better protect its host but also to generate actionable information that can directly enhance and augment their functionalities and performance.

All undergraduate and graduate students interested in joining the ARMOR Lab should contact Prof. Loh (by e-mail: kenloh@ucsd.edu) with your CV or resume and any other supporting materials. For more details, please visit the "Apply" page. U.S. citizens and permanent residents, as well as individuals from underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to join the ARMOR Lab.

There are no post-doctoral positions available at this time. 

LATEST NEWS

September 22, 2023

Congratulations to Ms. Yun-An Lin for successfully advancing to become a Ph.D. Candidate, as well as Mr. Shih-Chao Huang for passing his Department Qualification Exam.

September 5, 2023

Professor Loh was honored and named the TaylorMade Golf Chancellor's Endowed Professor. 

August 21, 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Yujin Park for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation titled, The Design of Mechanical Metamaterials for Nonlinear-Elastic Functional Structures and Surface Morphing." She has started her new position as an Engineer at Cisco

June 17, 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Yening Shu for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation titled, "Electrical Tomographic Methods for Defects Detection in Advanced Structures." She has started her new position as a CAE Analysis Engineer in the Vehicle Engineering Sector of Tesla. 

April 27, 2023

Congratulations to Ms. Yujin Park for winning the 2023 Jacobs School of Engineering, Research Expo, Structural Engineering Best Poster Award. Her poster was titled "Beyond Traditional Designs: Mechanical Metamaterials for Surface Morphing and Adaptive Stiffness." 

December 1, 2022

Congratulations to Ms. Yening Shu for accepting a new position at Tesla! She will officially start her new role on February 1, 2023 and will defend her Ph.D. dissertation then.

September 29, 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Han Joo Lee for accepting a new position as Senior Scientist at ASML in San Diego, CA. He will officially start on November 7, 2022.

September 19, 2022

UC San Diego Today published a press release on our new $1.2M NSF Smart and Connected Health project to create a novel system - that includes the use of Motion Tape - to study and inform the treatment of chronic low back pain. 

The ARMOR Lab is physically located in the UC San Diego, Structural and Materials Engineering (SME) Building, Lab 413 (main lab) and Lab 410 (Center for Extreme Events Research Lab). 

Visitor parking is available in the Gilman Parking Structure (5 min on foot to the SME Building). Note that construction is underway near the SME Building. Follow detour signs and exercise caution when near construction zones. 

Information about UC San Diego's response to the COVID-19 pandemic can be found here.

Contact Information for Prof. Ken Loh:

(C) Copyright 2023 UC San Diego and Prof. Ken Loh. All rights reserved.