Modern engineering is becoming more complex and challenging upon the many great technological advances made in recent decades. Today, a sensory device must not only be accurate, it must also work at long distance with low power consumption. A vacuum cleaner must not only be powerful, but also have the intelligence to be self-guiding. A robotic assembler must not only be operational efficient, but also agile and readily configurable. Designing such versatile systems needs the knowledge of not only mechanical components, but also of control, electronics, computer interface and software algorithms, and how they are integrated to work together. The Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE) is formed with the above challenge and the ensuing opportunities in mind. Our mission is to conduct frontier research and development to expand the horizon of modern technologies, and to educate our students to become a new generation of engineers, scientists and technical managers.

The Department has a faculty staff of outstanding achievements in the disciplines of robotics, mechanical systems, automation technologies and related areas. We are consistently among the best of our peers in Hong Kong in terms of research funding and top tier publications. Our achievements are well recognized by the technical community. In 2006, two of our faculty members were elected Fellows of the IEEE (the world’s largest professional association for advancement of technology), out of a total of six in Hong Kong. Altogether, the Department now has four IEEE Fellows, among many with other distinguished honors, in its staff. Our faculties are serving in key editorial positions in the best technical journals in the fields. We are active organizers of many top international conferences and workshops, and brought many of them to Hong Kong. Our Department is frequented by prominent scientists and scholars.

Our faculty members have also established an excellent track record in the technology transfer area with industries in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region. We are presently working on many application projects with industrial and Government supports, notable among which are the $60m Mechanical Watch project and the $14m Hybrid Electric Car project.

We are devoted to teaching our students and training them to be successful in the modern engineering world. We have in place a strong undergraduate programme that is broadly-based – covering core building blocks of the engineering system today: mechanics, electronics, control and computing; and integrative – instilling the know-how to select and tailor technologies to work effectively together in achieving the desired performance. Our programme is also forward looking. We train traditional mechanical engineers as well as leaders with the visions and insight to look further ahead in a world of ever increasing utilization of automating and interactive machines.

With the professors at the forefronts of technology, our students will get the best updated knowledge from global experts. Their education will be of high standard recognized by world communities. The many on-going industrial projects will also enable our students to gain experience in applying high technology to real and practical problems.

Students graduating from the MAE programme will find career opportunities in research, development and management in the fields of mechanical, manufacturing, biomedical, aerospace, construction, entertainment, and service engineering. Many of our graduates are already populating influential professional positions as chief engineers, administrators and managers in companies in Hong Kong and the Pearl-River Delta area. Some are entrepreneurs who launched their own startup companies. Many employers tend to favor our graduates because of their broad-based and integrative training as well as the flexibility and adaptability they are equipped to perform and excel in face of new circumstances and challenges.

Students with interests in academic research may choose to pursue higher degrees at the Department or other universities elsewhere. Many of our students have enrolled in graduate programs of some of the world’s best institutions, such as MIT, USC, UCLA, Imperial College and Cambridge University. In the Department’s relative short history of 13 years, we are proud to have numerous alumni already serving as professors and research scientists across universities in USA, Canada, England, Singapore, Hong Kong and China.

We invite you to browse through this website to learn more about the Department, our professors and their researches, our academic programme, and the great and exciting opportunities we are offering to our young generation. Those interested are also welcome to visit us at the CUHK campus: Room 213, William M.W. Mong Engineering Building, or call us at 2609-8343. We shall be most happy to talk to you

Professor Yeung Yam
Chairman
Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering
The Chinese University of Hong Kong