Engineering

At Alumni Weekend, Clean Energy a Hot Topic

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Members of the College of Engineering community – alumni, faculty, students and staff – gathered on Oct. 23 for the College’s second annual Future of Engineering Symposium, which focused on engineering’s role in clean energy solutions and helped kick off Boston University’s Alumni Weekend.

The symposium, “Amplifying the Societal Impact of Engineering Research: A Case Study in Clean Technology,” was hosted by College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen, and featured a keynote address from Yet-Ming Chiang, Kyocera professor of ceramics in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT.

“Right now, we’re in a golden age of engineering,” Lutchen said. “We’re facing many problems that need to be solved through engineering. And these problems need an engineering education, which will lead to real-world engineering solutions.”

Chiang’s talk focused on the extensive engineering research in the Boston-Cambridge area, clean energy storage, the critical emergence of the battery industry as long-term energy solution, and the quest for an affordable and clean electric vehicle.

“There’s never been a better time for engineering research to have an impact on technology and society,” Chiang said. “Research breakthroughs are still needed in many areas, but with so many factors – global warming, supply and demand, energy independence – driving our research, we continue to push the envelope to achieve these solutions in the future.”

A founding scientist of American Superconductor, a leading manufacturer of high-temperature, super-conducting wire for energy and power applications, and A123Systems, one of the world's leading suppliers of high-power lithium ion batteries, Chiang’s research in new battery technology earned him a R&D Magazine “R&D 100” and “R&D Editor’s Choice Award” in 2006.

“On a worldwide scale, the battery industry is as small as a lug nut,” Chiang said. “But it’s also critical, because without the lug nut, you lose the wheel. With renewable energy becoming widespread, increased storage will be needed. As an old colleague once said, ‘He who cannot store, will have no power after four.’”

While costs remain prohibitive, Chiang said advances are being made in the field of clean, electric automobiles, which was highlighted by a video demonstration of a “killacycle” electric motorcycle going from zero to 60 miles per hour in under a second. New battery research is playing a critical role, particularly through advancements in nanotechnology and materials science engineering.

“Materials science engineering is critical to the life of the battery, and energizing nanoscale batteries is critical to battery performance,” he said. “New breakthroughs will lead to new models and different ways to look at research. And as research grows, the rate of adoption continues, and engineering metrics continue to advance.”

Following the symposium, clean energy discussions continued throughout alumni weekend. On Oct. 24, Professor Michael Caramanis (ME) co-hosted the alumni college class, “The Future of Clean Energy: Challenges to Sustainable Energy Technology.” The interactive discussion focused on the future of the electric “SmartGrid” and the importance of consumer information in efficiently managing energy consumption.

Also on Oct. 24, Boston University President Robert A. Brown hosted the Inaugural President’s Panel on Energy, which featured a panel of industry experts, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, and DuPont, Inc., and explored alternative sources for creating ethanol.

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Clean Energy Events Highlight Alumni Weekend

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Clean energy and clean technology – and engineering’s role in future solutions – will be the main discussion topic during College of Engineering events at Boston University’s Alumni Weekend on Oct. 23 and 24.

Yet-Ming Chiang, Kyocera professor of ceramics in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, will be the keynote speaker at the College’s Future of Engineering symposium, “Amplifying the Societal Impact of Engineering Research: A Case Study in Clean Technology.”

An MIT faculty member since 1984, Chiang is a founding scientist of American Superconductor, a leading manufacturer of high-temperature, super-conducting wire for energy and power applications, and A123Systems, one of the world's leading suppliers of high-power lithium ion batteries.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering, he has published close to 180 research papers, 40 granted or pending patents, and authored the popular textbook, “Physical Ceramics: Principles for Ceramic Science and Engineering.” In 2006, Chiang’s research in new battery technology earned him a R&D Magazine “R&D 100” and “R&D Editor’s Choice Award.”

The symposium will begin at 3 p.m. in the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Hall (775 Commonwealth Ave.). Following the symposium, the College of Engineering will present the Distinguished Alumni Awards presentation and reception at the Ingalls Resource Center at 48 Cummington St. Both events are free and open to Boston University community.

BU Team to Advance Surveillance Capabilities in Autonomous Vehicles

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

A fleet of six unmanned Navy boats patrols a stretch of Boston Harbor for suspicious individuals, vehicles entering restricted areas and incoming liquid natural gas containers. Rigged with video cameras, laser range finders, navigation and control sensors, and on-board computers — and linked together in a network — the six vessels update one another when they detect potential security breaches. Meanwhile, a human operator continually interacts with the network to obtain critical information, but finds herself overwhelmed by the task of supervising multiple autonomous vehicles subject to ever-changing conditions.

Aiming to radically reduce the workload for human operators of semi-autonomous underwater, ground and aerial vehicles in military and civilian contexts, the U.S. Office of Naval Research launched the Smart Adaptive Reliable Teams for Persistent Surveillance (SMARTS) project on Sept. 11. Structured as a three-to-five-year Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) and funded at $1.5 million per year, the project tasks machine learning and control theory experts from MIT, Boston University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Pennsylvania to engineer more intelligent and capable autonomous vehicles.

Co-investigators on the BU research team are Calin Belta, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, systems engineering and bioinformatics and director of the Hybrid and Networked Systems Laboratory; and Professor Christos G. Cassandras (ECE), head of the Division of Systems Engineering and director of the Control of Discrete Event Systems Laboratory.

Using sophisticated computational tools and experimental models, Belta and Cassandras are working to develop autonomous, intelligent single agents — entities that compute, communicate and control — that can interpret and reason about their environment in changing conditions, as well as networks of multiple agents that can safely and efficiently coordinate their activities with other agents and human operators. The BU team draws on significant recent advances in robotics, sensor networks and computer, communications and control technology.

“The technology in the last 10 years has allowed us to move forward,” said Cassandras. “This includes the ability to communicate wirelessly across many agents or robots, and to pack much more powerful computational capabilities in smaller spaces.”

He compared the project’s main challenges to those posed by the “traveling salesmen” problem, in which a group of salesmen must visit several cities in minimum time.

“You have a large number of cities, some more important than others, some appear and disappear, the salesmen may lose communication with each other, their cars may break down and they have to visit as many cities as they can within a set time,” Cassandras explained. “How do you coordinate all of this? At the highest level, you want to define the task in simple English so the team can efficiently decipher the details.”

In the SMARTS project, each vehicle or agent must make decisions with minimal input. Ideally, technology conceived by project researchers will enable semi-autonomous vehicles to make decisions completely independent of human interaction except when absolutely necessary — regardless of changes in weather, lighting or other ambient conditions.

In the military theater, the ultimate goal of this research is to create teams of persistent surveillance agents to give combat vehicles the edge in detecting and responding to hostile targets.

“Their missions are to go, detect, visit targets and come home,” said Cassandras.

SMARTS technology may also be developed to enable motor vehicles to carve out an optimum path to an empty parking spot through congested traffic; empower sensor networks to display and control energy consumption by dishwashers, washer-dryers and other home appliances; and provide health monitoring services to homebound elderly or incapacitated adults.

With these applications in mind, Belta and Cassandras are working both on computers — using optimization methods to model the behavior of single and multiple agents and probabilistic techniques to model uncertain conditions — and deploying small robots that carry cameras, communicate with each other and perform missions in simulated settings.

For instance, to test out autonomous agent decision-making performance in an urban context, Belta sends robotic cars on various missions in a model city graced with plastic towers, makeshift roads with parking spots and computer-controlled traffic lights.

“We’re trying to come up with formal proofs for our controls and communications strategies and to ensure they’re bug-free,” he said. “We want to make sure that our control systems always work, regardless of operating conditions.”

NSF Grant Adds Laboratory Component to Nanotechnology Concentration

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The National Science Foundation has awarded the College of Engineering a major grant that will develop a hands-on research component in the College’s new undergraduate concentration in nanotechnology. Beginning in 2010, the grant, “NUE: Undergraduate Laboratory Experiences in Nanotechnology Devices and Systems (U-LENS),” will implement lab modules in two undergraduate nanotechnology courses, “Nanophotonics Devices Laboratory” and “Nanometer-Scale Processes in Living Systems.”

“This will really allow students to flesh out what they are learning in theory from the classroom,” said Associate Professor Anna Swan (ECE). “The lab aspect will get students in the lab – adding a hands-on component to their coursework.”

The grant’s lab modules will strengthen the experiential learning for undergraduates in the concentration, and will serve as a gateway for interaction between faculty involved in nanotechnology research and companies in nanotechnology areas.

“We have already received commitments from start-up companies to utilize our students as summer researchers,” Swan said. “The lab work will make students feel more comfortable in a research setting and provide a portal for entering into research. The students will present posters of their work at a Photonics Café where they will mingle with faculty, graduate students and start-up companies.”

The grant will also fund the purchase of new laboratory equipment and enable the development of several new freshmen engineering modules on nanotechnology, which will be available to all College undergraduates.

Swan is one of five co-principal investigators, alongside assistant professors Hatice Altug (ECE), Sean Andersson (ME), Tyrone Porter (ME) and Michael Smith (BME). The grant also includes participating faculty from throughout the College of Engineering, as well as Boston University’s departments of Physics and Chemistry, and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnology (CNN).

“The new nanotechnology concentration, along with the NSF grant, fits perfectly with the general research mission of Boston University,” Swan said, “Lab work can inspire students, and it’s great that we’ll be able to capture students in this way. It will bring visibility to nanotechnology at Boston University.”

The NSF grant strengthens the College’s new concentration in nanotechnology, which provides undergraduate students with foundational knowledge of nanotechnology and helps position them for future careers in the nanotechnology field.