The first meeting of the IEEE Aerospace & Electronic Systems Society, Kansas City Chapter has been scheduled for Thursday 26 February.

Time: 5:30PM to 7:00 PM. No meal will be served.

Location: Room RC 211 of the Regents Center at the KU Edwards campus at 12600 Quivira Rd, in Overland Park.

Program: The meeting will start with a very brief discussion of future meetings to be followed by our invited speaker.

Prof. Ron Barrett-Gonzalez from the KU Aerospace Engineering Dept. will present on "Adaptive Structures Innovations: New Devices, Actuators and Transducers." See the summary below for details (and note that there will be hands-on demonstrations!).

Please RSVP if you plan to attend so that Prof. Barrett-Gonzalez can be sure to bring enough pieces of adaptive material for everyone. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the AESS-KC chair Shannon Blunt at sdblunt @ ittc.ku.edu (remove the spaces).

Adaptive Structures Innovations: New Devices, Actuators and Transducers

This presentation will outline the basic properties of one of the newest classes of materials to be used in advanced actuators, transducers and electrical components. These actuators move, change their shape, apply forces, generate torques and can manipulate observed properties like color and luminosity in response to electrical commands.

Many devices using these materials have mass- and cost-mechanical power densities an order of magnitude greater than those exhibited by conventional electromechanical actuators and transducers.