The mobility industry has undergone a remarkable transformation—from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, and now toward autonomous driving. While today’s mobility emphasizes control autonomy (self-driving vehicle), we believe that the next frontier will lie in achieving energy autonomy. At the same time, ensuring safe and comfortable mobility remains equally important. Future vehicles must therefore not only manage, harvest, and store their own energy, but also protect passengers’ health and well-being through intelligent monitoring.
To address the challenge of energy autonomy, our research focuses on thermal management and energy harvesting. We develop advanced strategies to regulate temperature efficiently, recover waste heat, and generate power from environmental sources—technologies that maximize energy efficiency and enable vehicles to operate in a truly self-reliant manner.
Beyond energy, we also highlight the importance of signal monitoring. Monitoring driver and passenger bio-signals can prevent accidents caused by drowsiness, fatigue, or sudden health conditions, while in-cabin environmental sensing—such as detecting harmful gases or regulating air and temperature—ensures a safer and more adaptive driving experience.
Underlying all of these efforts is nanomaterial engineering, which serves as the foundation of our work. By tailoring material structures and properties at the nanoscale, we design multifunctional platforms that make possible the advances in energy management, sensing, and next-generation mobility technologies that define our research.