Alvo Aabloo, professor of polymeric materials

Intelligent Materials and Systems Laboratory (www.ims.ut.ee) is an interdisciplinary research group established in 2003 in University of Tartu, Institute of Technology.

Our goal is, by bringing together knowledge from diverse fields of expertise, to develop new materials and their control and applications. Exploitation of innovative materials will in turn permit building devices, different and in many ways superior to conventional machines.

The scientific background of our staff as well as the laboratory equipment permits research activities on the borderline of computational material science, material science, robotics, chemistry, computer science and electronics.

Currently our main research activity is focusing on development and exploitation of ion-conducting polymers and their composites. Ion-conducting polymer composites are a type of electroactive polymers that change their shape and size when electrically stimulated. The behavior of these materials resembles to some extent the behavior of biological muscles and therefore electroactive polymer actuators are often referred to as artificial muscles.