Dr Ya Huang specialises in nonlinear dynamics, biomechanics, human responses to shock and vibration, and stereo machine vision. He has been a Senior Lecturer in Engineering Dynamics at the University of Portsmouth since 2009. He leads research into human responses to shock and vibration as part of the Bioneer Research Group and takes the initiative in human-centred autonomy research of future land and marine transports. Before Portsmouth, he enjoyed 18-month working as part of the Blast and Impact Dynamics Group at Sheffield University. Dr Huang obtained his doctorate degree in human responses to whole-body vibration in 2008 at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), University of Southampton.

Ya’s main research interest has been, through understanding force and motion experienced by the human body (biomechanics), human factors during whole-body vibration (WBV) and repeated shocks (RS) seen in different modes of transport on land, in the air and at sea. He has over-15-year research experience of whole-body vibration and mechanical shock related biomechanic studies in the laboratory and in the field. He has contributed to the new methodologies to analysing human exposure to shock and vibration. He led laboratory studies of dynamic sitting trial of RNLI crew using two classes fast lifeboats seating configurations. His doctoral research was based on extensive experimental investigation to characterise a magnitude dependent human biomechanic response to whole-body vibration. 

His recent contribution has been to reconstruct multiple channels of nonlinear and cross-correlated force and motion signals during whole-body vibration – a key step for modelling ride quality and safety of all transportation systems. The outcome significantly reduces the computational costs and enhances the robustness in determining key contributors of the motion transmission path. These have led to recent investigation into musculoskeletal modelling of lifeboat crew, optimal bracing and coping strategies of lifeboat crew, and autonomous surface vehicles. Dr Huang has extended his research into applying existing machine learning and vision algorithms to quantify human crowd movement abnormity and to improve human machine interaction on wheeled vehicles. He has investigated wave slam on fast planing crafts using computational fluidic simulation and has spearheaded the application of 4D (space and time) dynamic scene reconstruction using stereo vision system for assessing human responses to oncoming disturbances in land transport systems.