A faculty-student team led by Professor Yi-Ren Wang of Tamkang University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering recently competed in the 2026 Green Idea Invention and Design Fair, held at Cheng Shiu University in Kaohsiung. Their project, “AI-Optimized Acoustic Black Hole Device for Vibration Reduction and Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting,” stood out among 193 competing teams and won the event’s highest honor, the Platinum Award, marking the team’s second consecutive victory.

The award-winning device uses an Acoustic Black Hole (ABH) structure to concentrate vibration energy, which is then converted into electrical energy through piezoelectric elements. By combining vibration suppression with energy harvesting, the technology offers potential applications for powering low-power sensors in bridges, rail transportation systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, aerospace structures, and other engineering systems.

Prof. Wang explained that a key innovation of the project is the integration of engineering optimization into an AI-based design process. The team developed its own database based on physical models and compared algorithms including DNN, LSTM, and XGBoost. The resulting model accurately predicted that positioning the ABH vibration-reduction beam at approximately the midpoint of the main beam would provide optimal performance, significantly reducing the time required for the repetitive simulations and experiments used in conventional design methods.

Unlike many teams that simply apply existing AI software, the Tamkang aerospace team developed and trained customized predictive models based on physical and experimental data. Their work represents a pioneering effort in Taiwan to integrate acoustic black holes, piezoelectric energy harvesting, and AI-based optimization. By transforming otherwise undesirable vibration into green energy, the project closely aligns with Tamkang University’s commitment to AI and sustainable development while demonstrating an interdisciplinary integration of green technology and aerospace engineering.

The award-winning students are members of Professor Wang’s NVIDIA Laboratory (Nonlinear Vibration Investigation and Damping Innovation Authority). The project builds on the master’s thesis of this year’s graduate Chen-Yen Yu, extending its simulation and experimental work through machine learning and broader applications. Team members Te-Liang Ou, Hao-Yu Wang, You-Jeng Hung, and Ya-Han Yeh are master’s students, while Chia-Mei Lin and Yi-Ching Huang are undergraduate project students entering their senior year.

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