KE Spotlight - Community Engagement - HKU Knowledge Exchange

HKU Faculty of Engineering creates innovative “imseCAVE” - a high performance, low cost, virtual environment for industrial applications and training

The HKU Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering has created the imseCAVE – an immersive virtual environment – through the integration and innovative customization of state-of-the-art engineering and technologies including virtual and augmented reality, sensor network, distributed computing, big-data processing and management. The device can be readily applied in industrial, commercial and non-commercial use with high mobility. It has been deployed in the simulation of very large and complex logistics systems. It was used to develop virtual reality-empowered training systems and programmes for ramp operations in Cathay Pacific Services Limited. Experiments can be performed on the virtual simulation systems whereby operational and design parameters can be investigated in a safe and controlled environment.

High-energy efficient LED driver invented by HKU researchers and commercialized

A research team of HKU Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering led by Professor Ron Hui Shu-yuen, Chair of Power Electronics, invented a passive LED driver that has an edge over conventional LED in terms of lifespan and environment friendliness. Its components can last 10 years and are 80% recyclable. With the assistance of the University's Technology Transfer Office, the technology has been licensed to a tech company in Hong Kong. It is being tested in Heshan, Guangdong, and will be tested in places with more extreme temperatures before going into mass production.

Customs and Excise Department cracks down suspected copyright infringement case on Internet using system developed by HKU

The Customs and Excise Department has recently used Lineament Monitoring System 1 Plus (LMS1+), which was jointly developed with HKU, to crack down a suspected copyright infringement case on the Internet. A suspect, who allegedly made money by uploading and illicitly sharing a large number of movies and videos through cyber-lockers, was arrested. The Department has been using LMS1+ since July this year, and this was the first case effected with the system. The LMS1+ is an automatic monitoring system that searches discussion forums and detects suspected intellectual property infringement activities.

Knowledge Exchange Awards 2014

The Faculty Knowledge Exchange (KE) Awards were introduced in 2011 in order to recognize each Faculty's outstanding KE accomplishment that has made demonstrable economic, social or cultural impacts to benefit the community, business/industry, or partner organizations. Following the successful launch of the Faculty KE Awards, the KE Award (Non-Faculty Unit) was introduced in 2012 with the same objective for the independent centres, institutes and units of the University. Results of the 2014 KE Awards are now available.

HKU research team develops a software for re-construction of crime scenes in three-dimension space

A research team led by HKU Computer Science Professor Yu Yizhou has developed a new software which can re-construct an informative and easy-to-comprehend three-dimension (3D) re-enactment of a past event to assist in crime investigation. The project received funding of over HK$5 million from the Innovation and Technology Fund in 2012. A trial version of the software is expected to be commercially available in one to two years.

HKU develops bird information free mobile app

HKU Department of Computer Science and Hong Kong Bird Watching Society have jointly developed the first cross-platform bird information mobile app of Hong Kong. The mobile app "HKcBirds: Common Birds of HK" consists of multimedia information of over 200 species of common birds in Hong Kong. It is now available for free in both App Store and Google Play. This mobile app is supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Fund granted by the University Grants Committee.

HKU develops new technology for identifying rare cancer cells and detecting early cancer

A multi-disciplinary research project, led by the HKU Engineering Faculty with members from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, has developed a new optical microcopy approach integrating existing fiber-optic and laser technologies, called Asymmetric-detection Time-stretch Optical Microscopy (ATOM), which can better detect rare cancer cells at an earlier stage in an ultrafast speed more accurately and efficiently. The development and application of this technology will hold great promise in advancing early cancer diagnosis or post-chemotherapy relapse detection.