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About

M. Sarhadi is a pioneering researcher whose career has been devoted to advancing automation in composite materials manufacturing, with a particular focus on robotic handling, lay-up processes, and intelligent manufacturing systems. Working primarily through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Sarhadi made foundational contributions to the automated assembly of advanced composite preforms — a critical challenge in aerospace and high-performance engineering applications. His landmark 1990 overview of robotic handling and lay-up of advanced composites (21 citations) established an authoritative framework for the field, while subsequent investigations into electrostatic force-based fabric handling (15 citations) demonstrated creative problem-solving for manipulating non-rigid materials. Sarhadi's development of fully automated manufacturing cells for carbon composite preforms — integrating computerised design data with resin transfer moulding techniques — showcased his systems-level thinking. Particularly notable is his invention of "shape-inclusive lay-up," a novel methodology enabling three-dimensional preforms to be produced and stored flat, significantly streamlining aerospace manufacturing workflows. His later work incorporating machine vision and texture analysis for automated quality inspection further broadened his contributions to intelligent manufacturing. Collectively, his research helped lay the groundwork for modern automated composite fabrication, influencing both academic study and industrial practice.