ERC advanced grant awarded to Alberto Corigliano for Immense project

Alberto Corigliano, Full professor of Solid and Structural Mechanics at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, has been awarded the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council for the five-year project IMMENSE (Inter materials and structures mechano-perception for self learning).

IMMENSE's challenge is to create materials and structures capable of receiving and exchanging signals, interpreting and comparing them, thus achieving the ability to self-learn and self-adapt. It is a fundamental step towards the creation of sentient materials and structures.

IMMENSE will enable the creation of new devices for multiple applications, such as materials with self-diagnostic and repair capabilities, new ways of monitoring and controlling civil and industrial structures and infrastructures, new micro-robots and miniature autonomous vehicles.

The mechanics of solids and structures, fluid-structure interaction, multi-physics phenomena at the micro- and macro-scale will be used and appropriately combined with micro-structured smart materials, to achieve physical-mechanical reception and control capabilities.

The complex dynamic response of arrays of oscillators, coupled with innovative physical devices enabling the classification and recognition of signals, will be used to achieve learning and reaction capabilities.

Finally, proof of principle prototypes will be created to perform micro- and meso-scale experiments showing the behaviour of sentient materials and structures.