Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink, FAIMBE, FPHMS, FSPIE, UA FdaVinci, UA FACABI, Senior IEEE, founded the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory in 2003 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, USA.
Since October 2009, Dr. Fink has been an Associate Professor and the inaugural Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair in Microelectronics at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Systems & Industrial Engineering, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, and Ophthalmology & Vision Science. He held a Visiting Associate in Physics appointment at Caltech (2001-2016), as well as concurrent appointments as Visiting Research Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurological Surgery at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California (2005-2014). He was a Senior Researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2001-2009).
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink was featured on KOLD News 13 on disruptive technology he and his laboratory have co-devised that has the potential to support retrofitting buildings with exterior insulation in an effort to reduce the carbon and energy footprint of the nation and the world.
Prof. Wolfgang Fink with a group of neuroscience and engineering students and a blind colleague prototyped a device to help visually impaired people move through the world more safely and efficiently: VISTA - Visual Impairment Subtle Touch Aid.
Prof. Wolfgang Fink is a finalist in the U.S. Department of Energy's "Envelope Retrofit Opportunities for Building Optimization Technologies Prize," or E-ROBOT Prize. Prof. Fink co-created wall-EIFS, a robotic concept that can retrofit buildings by installing insulation, thus cutting down carbon emissions.
The MIT Technology Review article: "NASA’s new rovers will be a fleet of mobile robots that work together," showcases yet another adoption of the "Tier-Scalable Reconnaissance Paradigm" devised by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink and his team 20 years ago [see foundational publication].
A team of University researchers is one of 10 Phase 1 prize winners in the U.S. Department of Energy's Envelope Retrofit Opportunities for Building Optimization Technologies - or E-ROBOT - competition. The team, comprising Prof. Wolfgang Fink, Prof. Jonathan Bean and Dewey Benson of Energy Quest Technologies, Inc., developed wall-EIFS, a robotically applied, 3D-sprayable exterior insulation and finish system for building envelope retrofits.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang featured on NPR/Arizona Public Media regarding co-winning the $200,000 DOE/NREL E-ROBOT Prize for developing a new way to apply insulation on historic buildings using robotic technology. The end goal is to put wall-scaling machines to work installing exterior insulation on buildings.
