Professors
Bruno Dehez (Head of division)
Prof. Dehez received a degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and a Ph D. degree from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), respectively in 1998 and 2004. After a post-doctoral experience at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (team of Prof. Multon) in 2004 and at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (team of Prof. Perriard) in 2005, he joined the UCL as professor of mechatronics in 2006. In 2010, he spent a scientific stay in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (team of Prof. Perriard).
His research activities cover the design, the modelling and the optimization of all types of electromagnetic devices, ranging from superconducting magnets to electrical motors, and including magnetic bearings and gears. Among these, he is particularly interested in electrodynamic and permanent magnet bearings, high performance BLDC machines, and their combination into selfbearing machines.
He has co-authored of more than 100 journal and conference papers or book chapters. He has also applied for 10 patents and contributed to launch the spin-off Axinesis (www.axinesis.com) that produces and markets rehabilitation robots.
Emmanuel De Jaeger
Prof. De Jaeger is Vice-Dean of the Louvain School of Engineering (Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain) in charge of the relationships with industry.
His research activities are related to Smart Grids, innovative concepts of virtual inertia and frequency containment reserves and their impact on power systems dynamics, active autonomous electricity distribution grids planning, innovative pumped hydro energy storage systems build on specific geologic sites (out of use quarries or underground cavities) and their integration in power systems, Power Quality and EMC in Smart Grids, Microgrids control...
Before holding his current position at the university, Emmanuel was Scientific Director and member of the Management Committee at Laborelec (GDF Suez - Research and Competence Centre in Electrical Power Technology). He has occupied different positions in this organization since 1991, from R&D engineer to Technical Director of the Electricity Grids and End-Use Department.
Paul Fisette
Prof. Fisette obtained his degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium in 1987. From 1990 to 1993, he worked as a researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the UCL, in collaboration with the railway company B.N. Eurorail and obtained a doctoral degree (Docteur en sciences appliquées) from the UCL in March 1994.
Since 1994, he has been working as research scientist with a fellowship from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS, Belgium) and he is developing research in multibody dynamics, symbolic programming (ROBOTRAN multibody software), vehicle dynamics, biomechanics and multiphysics modeling.
He is now full professor at the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain (EPL) at the UCL. He is author and co-author of more than 170 journal, conference papers and book chapters.
Greet Kerckhofs
Prof. Kerckhofs is Associate Professor at the iMMC, running the Biomechanics lab. The lab aims to apply an interdisciplinary, combinatory research approach, encompassing experiments, characterization and computational modelling, to solve different biomedical and biomechanical research questions. Her research will build further upon the expertise she has obtained during her PhD and postdoc.
Prof. Greet Kerckhofs obtained her PhD in 2009 at the Dept. Materials Engineering (MTM - KU Leuven), of which the aim was to optimize and validate microfocus X-ray computed tomography (microCT) to characterize porous materials. This non-destructive 3D imaging technique allows to visualize the entire internal structure of materials without destroying them. She performed her PhD and postdoc within Prometheus, the division of Skeletal Tissue Engineering of the KU Leuven. This interdisciplinary platform aims to repair large bone defects using tissue engineering constructs (i.e. biomaterial with cells and/or growth factors). Trained as an engineer, within Prometheus she has been capable of integrating biology and engineering technology (such as imaging, biomaterials testing and production/design) into her research and as a result, she now belongs to the small group of researchers that have grown into a genuine interdisciplinary profile.
During her postdoc, she has been optimizing contrast-enhanced microCT (CE-CT) for the 3D visualization and characterization of not only mineralized, but also soft biological tissues in different fields of application. As a result, she has become a pioneer and recognized expert in the field CE-CT. She has started collaborations worldwide and she is setting the stage for a new era of virtual 3D histology of soft tissues. She is currently also 10% Visiting Professor at the Dept. MTM (KU Leuven) and she is member of the scientific board of Prometheus (KU Leuven).
Benoît Raucent
Prof. Raucent is professor in the Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering of UCL since 1993. He lectures in mechanical drawing and mechanical design for undergraduate and graduate students. He is active in Problem and Project based learning. In 2014 he founded the new lecture in Innovation Classes. His research interests include factory automation, design for assembly, design of mobile robots, design of robots for surgical applications. Since 2014 he has been leading a team of innovation in international context. Since 2015 he has been the head of the Louvain Learning lab.He has authored 2 books, 7 contributions to books, 53 papers in international journals, 94 papers in international conference proceedings and 3 patents. He is the promoter of 8 doctoral theses.
Renaud Ronsse
Prof. Ronsse has always been intrigued by the neural control of human movements, and the way these principles can be transferred to human-centered robotics. Consequently, he is mainly active in the field of bio-inspired robotics, i.e. the design and control of robots obeying principles that are directly inspired by nature. This holds both regarding design issues, i.e. in the mechanical structure and actuation principles of the robot’s body; and control issues, i.e. in the algorithmic laws governing the robot behavior. His main application fields are medical robotics and humanoid robotics. In the former, he is active in the design and control of assistive and rehabilitation robots, mainly for the lower-limb. Bio-inspiration consists for instance in embedding elastic elements within the robot mechanical structure, thus reproducing muscle-like compliance. At the control level, he develops rehab robots whose behavior is governed by virtual spinal neural circuitries. This is well exemplified by the EU collaborative projects CYBERLEGs and CYBERLEGs++. Regarding humanoid robotics, he is again mainly involved in bio-inspired locomotion. His research driver is to design humanoid robot achieving better locomotion skills because they emulate human behavior. This is well exemplified by the EU collaborative project WALK-MAN. More recently, Renaud Ronsse developed an interest for the biomechanics of animals exchanging forces with the fluid they evolve in. He started a new collaborative research agenda to unveil the efficiency optimization mechanisms deployed by biological swimmers and flyers. Again, compliance and neural-like control structures are thought to play a significant role in this line of research.
Visiting Professors
Marc Bekemans
Prof. Bekemans
Maxime Raison
Prof. Raison received the degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
He is currently an Associate Professor in mechanical and biomedical engineering with École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, where he teaches dynamic measurement and modeling, and rehabilitation engineering. He is the head of the Research Chair in Pediatric Rehabilitation Engineering at the CRME–Ste-Justine University Hospital Center, Montreal. His main research interests are assistive robotics, multibody dynamic modeling, and biomechanics. He is author of 70 scientific publications and of 4 patent filings.
Visiting Lecturers
Xavier Bollen
Xavier Bollen obtained his master's degree in electromechanical engineering, with specialization in mechatronics in 2011 from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium. In 2016, he obtained his PhD degree from the UCL.
During his thesis, under the supervision of Pr. Benoît Raucent and Pr. Parla Astarci (Cliniques universitaires Saint Luc, Brussels), he developed a new device for minimally aortic valve resection. The device was used on patients undergoing open heart surgery in order to validate its design and its functional principle.
Now he still works on the design of the device and he also works on additive manufacturing inside the IMAP department. Since September 2015, he is invited lecturer at the Polytechnic School of Louvain where he teaches technical drawing to the first year bachelor's students in engineering.
Nicolas Docquier
Nicolas Docquier obtained is master in Mechanical Engineering in 2005 from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and his PhD from the same university in 2010 thanks to a doctoral fellowship of the F.R.S-FNRS. For the last ten years, he has been working on the modelling of multi-body systems (MBS), focusing on applications related to railway and road vehicle dynamics. He participated to many research projects, in collaboration with several industry partners.
In particular, his PhD was dedicated to the modelling of railway vehicles equipped with pneumatic suspensions, in collaboration with a major train manufacturer. In 2014, he did a postdoc stay in Mechanical and Civil Engineering Lab (LMGC, Université de Montpellier, France) where he worked on the coupling between MBS and the Discrete Element Method for modelling interactions between mechanical device and granular media such as the railway ballast.
He is now working on the WholeTrack research project, aiming at developing new railway track components based on both experimental test and simulation models of the whole railway system. He also coordinates the development of the Robotran software dedicated to MBS.
He is invited lecturer at UCL where he teaches multibody dynamics via a project based approach and at the CIEM where he introduces railway technologies to students of the specialized master in transport and logistics.
Christophe Everarts
Christophe Everarts graduated from Université catholique de Louvain with a Master in Electromechanical engineering in 2011. During his studies, he spent a semester in the Biorobotics Laboratory at EPFL in Switzerland.
In 2017, he obtained his PhD in the field of robotics prosthesis for amputees, more specifically on energy efficient ankle-knee prosthesis. As part of his PhD, he spent two month at the University of Zurich (UZH) and one year at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Biomechatronics Group which is one of the world leader in the active prosthesis field. He design there a new kind of Continuously Variable Transmission allowing ratio changing at rest. This design is now patented.
In 2013, he co-founded Quimesis SPRL, a startup specialized in mobile robotics and intelligent mechatronic systems. Quimesis brings its expertise to its customers to provide them with systems tailored to their needs and desires. Projects range from autonomous assistants (cleaning robots, leading robots, ...) to intelligent test benches through dedicated subsystem development or fun and ingenious showcase solutions. At the heart of its strategy, Quimesis' passion for innovation always puts its customer one step ahead of the competition. He is head of the mechanical department, supervising the mechanics development from design to production.
Since 2017, he is invited lecturer for the Project in Mechanical Design II. This project aims to train the student, through practice, to develop projects in mechanical design. The finalisation of projects is pushed as far as possible and the integration of different disciplines is promoted. Project themes are diverse, even individualised. They exclusively cover the design and sizing of mechanical devices, from an industrial application. However, the functions of these devices or application are not confined to the field of mechanics.
Emeritus Professors
Bruno de Meester de Betzenbroeck
Prof. Bruno de Meester graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) in 1970 and was later awarded a PhD in Metallurgical Engineering by the University of Kentucky (USA), in 1972. Most of his career has been spent at his Belgian alma mater where he first served as Invited Lecturer in 1975, then Associate Professor in 1980 and finally Professor since 1989. His teaching and research activities have centred on materials science, manufacturing processes and welding metallurgy.
Since 2016, he was involved in the International Institute of Welding activities as member of the IIW Board of Directors and IIW Vice-President, Chair of the IIW Technical Management Board, Chair of IIW Commission IX : “Behaviour of Metals Subjected to Welding”, Chair of the Editorial Board and Editor of the journal “Welding in the World.”
Since 2001, Prof. B. de Meester pioneered research on Friction Stir Welding in Belgium and concentrated most of his research efforts in this field through a number of European, Federal or Regional founded Research Projects.
Author or co-author of many publications, Prof. de Meester has been invited to deliver lectures throughout the world and received the Walter Soete Award from the Belgian Institute of Welding in 2003 the Arthur Smith Award from the International Institute of Welding in 2009.
Christian Eugène
Noël Janssens
Francis Labrique
Prof. Francis Labrique received his degree in Electrical Engineering and his PhD degree (Docteur en sciences appliquées) from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), respectively in 1970 and 1983.
From 1970 he has been with the Laboratory of Electrotechnics and Instrumentation of the Louvain school of engineering of the same university successively as Assistant, Lecturer and Professor. From 1987 to 1993 he has been head of the Laboratory, before joining the Centre of Research in Mechatronics. He has been invited Professor at the Technical University of Lisbon from 1985 to 1990 and is Doctor Honoris Causa of the Faculty of Electrotechnics of the University of Craiova (Romania).
His research activities are in the field of power electronics and high performance electromechanical actuators. He participated to several European Union projects devoted to electrically actuated flight control systems for civil aircrafts. Prof. Francis Labrique is co-author of numerous papers and of several books on power electronics (in English, in French and in Portuguese).
Ernest Matagne
