Research in the Sensors, Energy, and Automation Lab (SEAL)

Director: Alexander MamishevGraduate Students: Bing Jiang Mobile Monitoring of Underground Cable SystemsXiaobei Li Fringing Electric Field Tomography of MaterialsKishore Sundara-Rajan Fringing Electric Field Sensing of Moisture in Paper and PharmaceuticalsGabriel Rowe Resin Transfer Mold Monitoring using Fringing Electric Field Sensors and Biomedical Applications for Flexible Sensor ArraysNels Jewell-Larsen Micro-Cooling of Electronics Using of Corona Air PropulsionDinh Bowman RFID-Enhanced Sensor Technology for Power Network Monitoring

Research in SEAL

Challenging…

Sensing Everything

Research in SEAL

Rewarding…

SEAL Members win Awards• Mary Gates Fellowship• NASA Space Grant• Grainger Fellowship• EEIC Assistantship• Intel Research Award• Best Paper Awards• DEIS Fellowship• APPA DEED Fellowship• EE Bergseth Scholarship• Poster Winners at International Conferences• SEAL Scholarship

SEAL Members… • Get Internships and Jobs• Travel to Conferences in interesting places• Publish Papers• Learn important skills for the real world• Interact in a dynamic, exciting environment SEAL Members…Get where they want to go!

Research in SEAL

Mind Expanding…

New Skills

Research in SEAL

Fun!

Micro-Cooling of Electronics Using Corona Air Propulsion

Graduate Student: Nels Jewell-Larsen

Sponsors: Intel, Kronos Air Technologies

Problem: Heat generation is becoming a major bottleneck in high density electronics, especially 3D architectures and power electronics. The market for thermal management products (mini cooling technology) has exceeded $1 billion dollars a year and growing at a compound annual rate of 15%.

Solution: A MEMS-scale solid-state air pump using ionic propulsion to air-cool micro-electronics such as Intel processors

Advantages: • Silent, no moving parts• No vibration or gyroscopic effects• Can be integrated into chip structures• Versatile shape and size • Dynamic air flow profile

Fringing Electric Field Sensing of Moisture in Paper and Pharmaceuticals

Graduate Student: Kishore Sundara-Rajan

Sponsors: Metso Automation, Wyeth

Problem: • Accurate moisture measurement at the wet end of the paper machine has NEVER been successfully done before.• Very noisy and harsh environment.• Very high accuracy requirements

Solution: Fringing electric field sensors to measure moisture content on the very large scale in paper machines and the very small scale for pharmaceutical samples

Advantages of Fringing Electric Field Sensors: • Very simple to construct• Only require single-sided access to sample• No moving parts• Can be customized to many sizes and geometries• Can detect minute changes in moisture

Paper Machine Pharmaceutical sample

Monitoring of Resin Transfer Molding Process for Next Generation Aircraft

Graduate Students: Sponsors: AFOSR (Air Force)

Problem: • Resin Transfer Mold process needs to be optimized for efficiency and cost• Requires monitoring all aspects of RTM process• Must create Feed-forward control loop

Solution: Development of a sensor and control system for the resin transfer mold process. Sensors are capable of accurately measuring flow-front position as a function of time.Sensors are being designed to perform dielectric spectroscopy for cure-monitoring.

Advantages of Approach: • Capable of simultaneously measuring degree of cure, viscosity, pressure, temperature, and any other variable of interest throughout the duration of cure cycle.• Real-time, continuous, 3-D mapping of these variables.• Non-intrusive, simple, low cost.

F22 Raptor: Made with Resin Transfer Mold process

Gabriel Rowe

Mobile Monitoring of Underground Cable Systems

Graduate Student: Bing Jiang Sponsors: NSF, APT

Problem: • Scheduled maintenance of the underground cable system is costly and inefficient • Testing the impedance at defined test points (e.g. each mile) is not sufficient to detect certain types of incipient faults• A human cannot test every inch of an underground cable efficiently

Solution: Mobile Monitoring Robot using fringing electric field, acoustic, and infrared sensors. Prototype traverses along cable then stops to inspect cable.

Underground Power Tunnel

August 14, 2003

Robot in Cable Trough

Advantages of Robotic Monitoring: • Accurate: every inch of the cable can be tested for hot-spots, cracks, water tree, and aging in the cable• Cheap: Robotic monitors can perform inspections cost-efficiently• Repetitive: Saves human inspectors from performing highly-repetitive tests

Fringing Electric Field Tomography of Materials

Graduate Student: Xiaobei Li Sponsors:

Problem: • Many material complexes such as food products are difficult to test the quantity of moisture or properties directly• In industrial settings, a sensor can often only access the material from a single side• Inconsistency between products is not desired

Solution: Use fringing electric field sensors to measure multiple properties with the same sensor array. Present prototypes can measure moisture in cookies!

Advantages of Fringing Electric Field Sensors: • Can access sample from single side• Electrodes can be programmed to exhibit a field in material that gives a tomographic view of material• Capacitance measurements of moisture exhibit a strong effect due to the large polarizability of water molecules

Programmable fringing electric field sensors

August 13, 2003

Before AfterAugust 14, 2003

Flexib le substra te

Backp lane

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E lectrodes

Parallel plate sensor

RFID-Enhanced Sensor Technology for Power Network Monitoring (new topic)

Graduate Student: Dinh Bowman Sponsors: LG Electronics

Problem: • The power industry needs to better maintain its enormous and aging infrastructure• No matter what model of maintenance, testing and monitoring the infrastructure is costly and inefficient• What if the network could tell you where and when the problem was or even before the problem occurred?

Solution: Develop RFID sensors that can analyze the quality of power cables to determine if they need maintenance. Generate huge savings for utilities in maintenance costs.

RFID Sensors for the Power Industry: • RFID sensors are proposed for inexpensive monitoring of the power infrastructure• Using energy harvesting, RFID sensors could be powered by the same thing it is measuring• Mobile monitoring platforms could be used to deploy the sensors and collect data from the sensors periodically

Radio Frequency IDentification Tags Aging Power Infrastructure RFID Sensors in Passenger Vehicle Tires

Biomedical Applications for Flexible Sensor Arrays (new topic)

Graduate Student: Gabriel Rowe Sponsors: NIH

Problem: • Wearing a prosthetic limb for long periods of time or in active circumstances causes pressure sores• No technology exists to monitor pressure and shear gradients at a low enough level to predict pressure sore formation at the prosthetic-residual limb interface

Solution: Multimodal sensor array at the prosthetic interface to determine the pressure, shear, humidity and temperature. Knowledge of the conditions will help prevent sores from wearing prosthetics.

Advantages of Sensitive Skin: • High resolution sensing of forces that lead to pressure sores• Compatible with an embedded system to actuate a suction socket or complex pressure relieving system to maintain a tight fit• Robust material can be used in other applications to monitor interface forces and conditions between humans and machines

Amputee with lower-limb prosthetic Simulations of Sensor Cell

Prototype of Single Cell