An Interdisciplinary Research Field: Active Tensegrity Structures

Research into “active tensegrity structures” has been carried out since decades by aeronautical engineers, civil engineers and mechanical engineers. Keeping in the mind the productive nature of interdisciplinary work, I believe that the interaction between research groups composed of researchers from merely one of these categories should be enhanced. Ultimately, an ideal research group working on active structures would comprise civil engineers, aeronautical engineers, mechanical engineers and computer scientists. Also, there is a gap between the research conducted in Europe and the research conducted in the US. Most of the researchers in the field of “active tensegrity structures” are civil engineers in Europe (e.g. Ian F.C. Smith, René Motro, Simon Guest*). On the other hand, almost all of the scholars working on active control of tensegrity structures (e.g. Robert E. Skelton, Cornel Sultan, Hillary Bart-Smith) are from aeronautical or mechanical engineering field. Also, other aspects of tensegrity structures are studied by medical doctors (e.g. Donald Ingber). Collaboration among these groups is very important in the context of transatlantic research cooperation, as well. Therefore, it is worth to step up efforts toward such collaboration.

*Simon Guest is not a “civil engineer” but an “engineer” since University of Cambridge does not award any other engineering title.