Some parts spun too fast. The unstable platform wobbled. The bubble solution carried by spinning wands spilled before reaching the bubble-blowing fan. No solution, no bubbles.

Something had to be done. In two weeks, Danyi and her team planned to enter the machine into NC State's 13th Annual Freshman Engineering Design Day.

"Being an engineer is all about trial and error," Danyi, a freshman in chemical engineering, said after some last-minute tweaks made the machine competition-ready. "You identify the problem, brainstorm a way to resolve it and then create the finished product."

Freshman Engineering Design Day brings together more than 1,300 students on more than 400 teams who have completed design projects assigned in the College's introductory engineering course. Students huddle in groups for several weeks before the event, assembling hovercrafts, stitching together fabric buckets, molding concrete canoes, engineering nuclear reactor probes and tinkering with chain-reaction-driven Rube Goldberg machines.

All that work culminates in a day-long competition held in two packed rooms of students, faculty, judges and parents at NC State's McKimmon Center on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Medals are awarded to the winners.

"Design Day is the defining first-semester experience for engineering students," said Brian Koehler, the director of international engagement for the College who helps run the event. "It's a great opportunity for our first-year engineers to tackle difficult engineering problems they'll be facing during the next four years and ultimately in their professional careers."

Each project comes with its own set of constraints. Students must not exceed a $40 spending limit, which encourages creativity and innovation by forcing them to reuse, borrow and find creative resources in places other than store shelves.

That spirit of frugality and reusability was on display at this year's event, where students used toy cars, old plastic containers, aluminum foil, scrap wood, oil funnels, rubber bands, Pez dispensers, Tupperware containers and duct tape to build their entries.

Personalization is encouraged. A plastic watering can and holiday lights topped a flower-rimmed fountain. Arcade pinballs pummeled miniature Duke and UNC mascots. 18-inch concrete canoes - they can hold 10 pounds of marbles if built properly - were proudly painted NC State red.

For Danyi, the event turned out to be more than just a first-semester highlight. It gave her the chance to be a team leader and employ problem-solving skills when things didn't go as planned.

After the bubble-blowing failure, the team regrouped and devised a new design. A battery-powered motor in an overturned toy truck spun a wheel that had been cut from the bottom of a five-gallon plastic bucket. Because the wheel was larger and heavier than the CD covers they had originally used, the spinning wands that cradled the bubble solution became much more rigid, allowing the machine to spit out bubbles by the dozens.

The relieved team had its entry.

"The experiences at Design Day are a very accurate taste of what engineers will have to deal with in the real world," Danyi said.

Kathan Bender, a freshman majoring in civil engineering and environmental engineering, said the event improved his team's time management skills and taught team members the value of advance planning.

The group entered the water fountain competition, in which students must create a device that propels water upward against gravity. Bender and his team decided to meet early in the semester to begin work.

The group built its waterfall from bamboo stalks. The stalks were tied together with twine and then set into a bamboo box filled with water and small stones. The water, propelled by an electric pump, was able to flow through a plastic tube encased in the central bamboo stalk, emerging out of the top and flowing back down into the box.

"After choosing the water fountain as our project, we had to decide on a theme and what parts of the project we wanted to assign to each person," Bender said. "Then we started planning the layout, gathering materials and putting it all together. It helped me learn the necessity of getting everything drawn out in advance before you start working."

Although Bender's team didn't receive a medal, he believes the group's bamboo water fountain was a crowd-pleaser that "gained the popular vote" of visitors to their table. Danyi's team didn't medal either, but that didn't take away from the event's positive experiences.

"Figuring out how to put our strengths together and working through problems are going to be very valuable experiences for the future," Danyi said. "Teamwork and effective communication are highly important for any group of people working together on a project."

The skills learned through Design Day help prepare Danyi, Bender and hundreds of other students for the more challenging projects to come in their academic and professional careers.

"Design Day helps our first-year engineers continue developing their interdisciplinary teamwork, problem-solving and communication skills while creating something that works," Koehler said. "With these skills, students can become leaders who solve challenging problems."

NC State has received an INSPIRE grant from the National Science Foundation to better understand how plants will respond to various stresses, such as a lack of essential nutrients. In particular, the project investigates how a plant called Arabidopsis thaliana responds when deprived of iron, which is essential to the plant's biological processes. However, a more significant goal of the project is to improve our understanding of the specific proteins (or "transcription factors") that control how the plant responds to environmental conditions.

"That information will be used to create computer models that can give us insight into how plants respond to various stresses," says Cranos Williams, the lead investigator on the project and an assistant professor of computer engineering. "Ultimately, we want to create models that can help us determine the best practices for breeding plants with increased nutritional value and the best agricultural practices for different conditions - ranging from how growers should respond to stresses related to climate change or new plant diseases to farming on marginal crop land."

Williams' work focuses on using computational models to understand the behavior of complex biological systems. And project collaborator Joel Ducoste, a professor of environmental engineering, has experience in creating models of cellular processes. That's the kind of know-how you need to develop mathematical and computer models that can predict how plants will respond to various stresses - but that's not all you need. For instance, you also need someone who understands the plants themselves.

Enter Terri Long, an assistant professor of plant biology who uses genomics, molecular biology and genetics to determine how the activity of specific genes triggers physiological changes in plants. When certain genes are "switched on" they produce transcription factors that can then "switch on" other genes, triggering a range of behaviors in the plant. Long is already working to determine which of these transcription factors are triggered when Arabidopsis is deprived of iron, and how these various groups of genes interact with each other. All of that information will go into the creation of a prototype model - which Williams and Ducoste can test by comparing model predictions to the results that Long is seeing in her biology lab.

But running complex models like this one can take a long time, requiring a significant amount of computing power. This is where James Tuck comes in. An assistant professor of computer engineering, Tuck is working with the team to help streamline the model's computation in order to make it run more quickly and efficiently.

"Without modifications, the model could take weeks or years to run, making the resulting calculations effectively useless," said Tuck. "It's like the problem of weather prediction-if the calculation takes so long that the storm hits before the prediction is made, it's not useful." Efficient implementations that leverage hundreds to thousands of computers are projected to solve large models in minutes or days, and that means finding answers quicker and more efficiently.

By sharing expertise in computer modeling, plant biology, genetics, biological systems and high-speed computing, the researchers hope to shed light on issues related to the most fundamental of real-world problems: ensuring that the human population has enough to eat.

And this is only a taste of things to come. Through the Chancellor's Faculty Excellence Program, NC State is planning to apply this sort of interdisciplinary approach to a range of additional research areas, from medicine to forensic science.

Credit: Matt Shipman | NCSU News Services

Digital ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) are at the core of all modern Information Technology. They rely on silicon chip technology to enable society to build complex systems including wireless devices, tablets, computers, network routers, and more. Due to the rapid rate of improvement of the underlying silicon technology, these chips are constantly being redesigned. Thus digital ASIC design companies are strong employers around the world.

Beginning on May 21st, 2013, this open online course will teach you how to design a digital ASIC (standard cell or FPGA) using the Verilog Hardware Description Language.  At the end of 10 weeks, you will have an understanding of what ASICs are, and how they are designed and verified -- in addition, you will have demonstrated those skills via a small project. 

Anyone may enroll in this course. During the course you will use Windows based computer aided design tools that are freely available on the web. All the course content and automated/peer grading is identical to the regular on-campus version taught at North Carolina State University.

Students who successfully complete the online course with a grade of 80% or better will have an opportunity to "upgrade" their achievement. By enrolling as a non-degree studies distance education student and completing the human graded and proctored portions (not available in the pure online version), students can receive regular course credit from NC State University.

The instructor for this course -- Dr. Paul Franzon, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering -- has twice been honored as the ECE Graduate Teacher of the Year. He was awarded the Australian Defense Medal in 2007. His primary teaching and research focuses on building microsystems (systems constructed of silicon chips, both analog and digital, and silicon micromachined components) for applications in computing, communications, sensors, robotics, and signal processing. Dr. Franzon is the Conference Co-Chair for the 2013 3DIC (IEEE International 3D Systems Integration Conference), that will be held in San Francisco, CA in October of 2013.

For information please go to http://go.distance.ncsu.edu/digital-asic/

Travis was selected as the most outstanding 4.0 Junior who is eligible for membership with the highest number of NCSU credits.

Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation's oldest, largest, and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Its chapters are on more than 300 campuses in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Each year, approximately 30,000 members are initiated.

Membership into Phi Kappa Phi is by invitation only and they must meet strict requirements in order to be eligible for membership.

The Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards serves as the primary university-level forum for recognizing exceptional contributions made by Graduate Teaching Assistants to the educational excellence of the University. This annual event is a celebration of excellence in graduate student teaching in the laboratory and classroom. The UGSA Teaching Effectiveness Committee invites the Directors of Graduate Programs (DGPs) to nominate a small number of TAs that exemplify outstanding teaching and mentoring and go beyond what is required of them. All departments are encouraged to participate so that their students receive the recognition they deserve.

Tiwari taught a section of ECE 209 in Fall 2012 and was mentored by Dr. Greg Byrd.

The award ceremony was held on March 18, 2013 at the McKimmon Center.

Mikail is a part of the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center and is being advised by Dr. Iqbal Husain.

This research project was funded by Nexteer Automotive, Saginaw, MI.

Rajib's research was on "Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM) for Electric Power Steering Application".

Abstract: Power steering creates the necessary torque assist for the driver while rotating the steering wheel. Electric motor is recently used in power steering for better steering feel. To meet the torque ripple and noise level according to the standard specification is a challenging step for power steering system design. Non-permanent magnet machines are the key focus of researchers and industries due to the cost and availability issues of rare earth permanent magnet. SRM is the only non-permanent magnet machine which is highly reliable and inherently fault tolerant for steering application. With the current design and control technology, SRM has unsuitable torque ripple and acoustic noise for steering application. In this project the machine was redesigned and a new controller algorithm is proposed and implemented experimentally to achieve the required torque ripple and noise performance. A novel current profiling approach covering the speed range of operation is proposed. In addition to the current profiling method a predictive current control method is analyzed to follow the current profiles with minimum error and desired switching frequency. With the achieved improvement SRM can be used on other torque ripple sensitive high performance applications.

Many surgical procedures now use long, thin devices - such as "steerable needles" - that can be inserted into a patient's body through a small incision and then steered to a target location. These "minimally invasive" procedures allow doctors to perform surgeries without having to make major incisions, which decreases the risk of infection and shortens the patient's recovery time.

However, these techniques pose a challenge to surgeons, because it is difficult for them to determine precisely where the surgical device is in the patient's body.

One solution to the problem is to use X-rays to track the progress of the surgical device in the patient. But doctors want to minimize the number of X-rays taken, in order to limit the patient's exposure to radiation.

"We have now developed an algorithm to determine the fewest number of X-rays that need to be taken, as well as what angles they need to be taken from, in order to give surgeons the information they need on a surgical device's location in the body," says Dr. Lobaton, lead author of a paper on the research.

The new tool is a computer program that allows surgeons to enter what type of procedure they'll be performing and how precise they need the location data to be. Those variables are then plugged into the algorithm developed by the research team, which tells the surgeon how many X-rays will be needed - and from which angles - to produce the necessary location details.

For example, if a surgeon needs only a fairly general idea of where a device is located, only two or three X-rays may be needed - whereas more X-rays would be required if the surgeon needs extremely precise location data.

The paper, "Continuous Shape Estimation of Continuum Robots Using X-ray Images," will be presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, being held in Karlsruhe, Germany, May 6-10. The paper was co-authored by Jingua Fu, a former graduate student at UNC; Luis Torres, a Ph.D. student at UNC; and Dr. Ron Alterovitz, an assistant professor of computer science at UNC. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

You can read the paper that was will be presented on May 6-10, 2013 at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Karlsruhe, Germany, below.

"Continuous Shape Estimation of Continuum Robots Using X-ray Images"

Authors: Edgar J. Lobaton, North Carolina State University; Jingua Fu, Luis G. Torres and Ron Alterovitz, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Presented: May 6-10, 2013, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract: We present a new method for estimating the shape of a continuum robot continuously during a medical procedure using a small number of X-ray projection images. Continuum robots have curvilinear structure, enabling them to maneuver through constrained spaces in a snake-like manner. An accurate estimate of the robot's shape is crucial for the success of procedures that require avoidance of anatomical obstacles and sensitive tissues. Online shape estimation of a continuum robot is complicated by uncertainty in its kinematic model, movement of the robot during the procedure, noise in X-ray images, and the clinical need to minimize the number of X-ray images acquired. Our new method integrates kinematics models of the robot with data extracted from an optimally selected set of X-ray projection images. Our method represents the shape of the continuum robot over time as a deformable surface which can be described as a linear combination of time and space bases. We take advantage of probabilistic priors and numeric optimization to select optimal camera configurations, thus minimizing the expected shape estimation error. We evaluate our method using simulated concentric tube robot procedures and demonstrate that obtaining 3 images from viewpoints selected by our method achieves shape estimation errors significantly lower than using the kinematic model alone or using uniformly spaced viewpoints.

The award will run from January 5th, 2013 to September 4th, 2016.

Research Abstract: NCSU's FREEDM Systems Center will assist Cree in the testing, characterization and design optimization of future generation of high voltage gate turn-off (GTO) thyristior.

The Outstanding Teacher Award recognizes excellence in teaching at all levels. Faculty must be recognized as an Outstanding Teacher before they can receive the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Alumni Distinguished Professor Award.

Upon being selected as an Outstanding Teacher, recipients become members of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers for as long as they are NC State faculty. Recognition is given at Commencement, the Celebration of Academic Excellence, and the Celebration of Teaching and Learning.

In the ECE Department, the winner of the ECE Lane Teaching Award is submitted to the college for consideration for an Outstanding Teaching Award. Dr. Yu was selected for the Lane Teaching Award by the ECE Awards Committee. The William F. Lane Outstanding Teacher Award recognizes excellence in teaching or educational leadership in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). The award is presented annually by ECE
along with a $500 cash prize.

Dr. Yu's main research areas include Nanoelectronics and Photonics (including Nanotechnology, Silicon Devices and Fabrication).

The Proceedings of the IEEE publishes comprehensive, in-depth review, tutorial, and survey articles written for technically knowledgeable readers who are not necessarily specialists in the subjects being treated. The articles are of long-range interest and broad significance. Coverage includes all aspects of electrical and computer engineering and science, including the managerial, historical, economic, and ethical aspects of technology.

"The Proceedings of the IEEE has a varied and diverse readership," says Dr. Trussell. "Our current thrust is to attract new and younger readers who have a perspective that goes across all boundaries. We find that our readers view the journal's special issues as mini-textbooks and this is especially useful for someone who might be transitioning to a new field of responsibility."

The most current Journal Citation Reports (JCR) rankings list Proceedings of the IEEE as the highest rated IEEE journal and the second rated of all electrical engineering journals in the world.

Candidates for Editor-in-Chief are nominated by the current EIC in consultation with the Editorial Board. The names are submitted to PSPB Nominations & Appointments Committee who in turn submit to IEEE Publication Services and Products Board for appointment. Dr. Trussell was nominated by Dr. Bob Trew, Alton and Mildred Lancaster Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University.

The duties and responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief of Proceedings of the IEEE include but are not limited to:

• Assures that the content follows the approved scope of the publication.
• Manages the editorial aspects of the publication under a peer review process in order to publish high-quality articles consistent with accepted IEEE standards and the scope of subject areas approved for the publication.
• Delegates responsibility, as necessary, for various publication activities to other editors of the publication but retains ultimate responsibility for the editorial process.
• Attends and participates in the annual meeting.

Dr. Trussell's involvement with Proceedings of the IEEE started in January of 2008.

Dr. Joel Trussell received his B.S. Math from Georgia Tech (1967), M.S. Math from Florida State  (1968) and Ph.D. Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1976). He worked at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory from 1969 to 1980 in image and signal processing. During 1978-79, he was a visiting professor at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland working with both the university and with industry on image processing problems. In 1980, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, where he is now professor. He served as Director of Graduate Programs (2002-2010) for ECE. During 1988-89, he was a visiting scientist at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY. He was visiting scientist for Color Savvy Systems in 1997-98. He was a visiting fellow commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK (6 months 2007), and Visiting Scientist at Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA (6 months 2008).

The award will run from August 16th, 2012 to August 15th, 2013.

Research Abstract: Through interdisciplinary doctoral education in Nanoscale Electronic and Energy Materials (NEEM), North Carolina State University (NC State) proposes to increase its commitment to interdisciplinary graduate training in electronic and energy materials related to nanotechnology.  This interdisciplinary field comprises several areas designated by the GAANN Program as critical to national need: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics.  Our goal is to enlarge the pool of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who pursue teaching and research careers in nanoscale electronic and energy materials, thereby developing the academic and research infrastructure and increase U.S. competitiveness.

Spotlight on Optics (Spotlight) features articles nominated by The Optical Society's (OSA) Topical and Associate Editors to show the breadth and quality of OSA content from six major technical divisions: Information Acquisitions, Processing, and Display; Light-Matter Interactions; Optical Design and Instrumentation; Optics in Biology; Optoelectronics; and Vision and Color.

"In this work," says Dr. Escuti,  "we study a novel optical element that efficiently controls a quantum property of light, its orbital angular momentum (OAM). Among other applications, OAM is useful in studying and manipulating individual cells, molecules, and nanoparticles, as well as in high-capacity optical telecommunication systems. Our new optical element, called a Forked Polarization Grating ("FPG"), can easily change OAM with ~100% efficiency, replacing entire lab benches full of optics in a single thin film. In one configuration, FPGs can nonmechanically switch between various states with simple applied voltages. In another configuration, FPGs can generate and detect OAM states. In our work, we show for the first time that a thin liquid crystal layer, not unlike those in common LCDs, can experimentally realize all of the advantageous properties predicted theoretically, when holographically patterned to include the fork-shaped singularity."

Dr. Escuti is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University. Dr. Kim is a Post Doctoral Research Scholar in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Dr. Li is a Graduate Research Assistant.

Read the Abstract and Full Article.

An education services company, The Princeton Review chose its "Best Value Colleges" for 2013 based on criteria covering academics, cost of attendance and financial aid. The methodology examined more than 30 factors using data from the company's surveys of administrators and students at 650 colleges with strong academic programs.

NC State is no stranger to Princeton Review best-value rankings. In 2006 it was named both second best value among the nation's public colleges and universities and one of the nation's 25 "most connected" campuses; in 2009 it was sixth on the best value list and was ninth in 2011.

US News has also ranked NC State's Online Graduate Engineering Program #7 on their list of Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs. 

NC State also appeared on 2012-13 best-value lists recently compiled by Kiplinger's (21st in-state best value) and U.S. News & World Report (fifth in best overall public university value).

MICRO is the flagship conference for microprocessor architecture and one of the four top-tier computer architecture conferences.  MICRO-45 had 228 submissions of which 40 were accepted after a rigorous review process including rebuttal and shepherding phases.

"Just as IEEE has grassroots 'Technical Committees (TC)' on various technical specialties, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) has analogous 'Special Interest Groups (SIG)'" says Rotenberg.

SIGMICRO is ACM's Special Interest Group on Microarchitecture. They co-sponsor several premier computer architecture conferences, including MICRO.  The award that Dr. Rotenberg received is sponsored by ACM SIGMICRO, but is in fact related to the MICRO Conference.

Dr. Rotenberg has published papers on topics such as new paradigms for exploiting instruction-level parallelism (ILP), novel high-performance processors, automating superscalar processor design, and more, with his first MICRO paper being published in 1996.

According to Dr. Rotenberg, "'Microarchitecture' deals with the design of microprocessors, memory systems, etc., that can be found in all computers, including smart phones and other handheld devices, laptops and PCs, Cloud data centers, and supercomputers."

The paper, "Control-Flow Decoupling," that put Dr. Rotenberg over the top was co-authored by Rotenberg, Rami Sheikh, and Dr. James Tuck. Sheikh is a PHD student who is being advised by Dr. Rotenberg and Dr. Tuck is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University.

More information about MICRO can be found at the MICRO Conference Website.

IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (T UFFC) is published monthly covering advances in the theory, technology, materials, and applications relating to physical acoustics, medical ultrasound, ultrasonic transducers, sensors, non-destructive testing, ferroelectrics, and frequency generation and control.

Dr. Oralkan has been a reviewer for the T-UFFC since 2003. He has also published some 20 articles in the T-UFFC since 1999, almost half of his published journal papers. When asked for comment, Dr. Oralkan said, "I am honored to be selected as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control. This is the leading publication in our field. I am happy to have the opportunity to serve the scientific community at increased capacity."

The magazine's 2013 rankings put Engineering Online's graduate engineering programs at No. 7 nationally and its computer science and computer networking programs at No. 9 (those programs are listed under "Computer Information Technology Programs"). Prospective students often use the U.S. News rankings to help them decide which school to attend.

The College of Engineering at NC State established what is now known as Engineering Online in 1978. The program, designed for working professionals, allows students to earn master's degrees in engineering without coming to campus. Courses offered by Engineering Online are identical to on-campus courses in terms of content, requirements and academic rigor. GetEducated.com ranked Engineering Online's master's programs sixth nationally in its most recent "Best Buy" rankings.

Engineering Online offers master's degree programs in aerospace engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, computer engineering, computer networking, computer science, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, industrial engineering, integrated manufacturing systems engineering, materials science and engineering, mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering. The program also offers a master of engineering degree.

The award will run from October 1st, 2012 to September 30th, 2015.

Research Abstract: The automotive sector is one of the richest targets for emerging innovations in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS). Increased content electronics, non-contact sensors, controls and communication with the environment and the driver will change the way we drive and interact with our cars in the near future. However, despite the enormous number of fatalities and injuries on US and world roads, there is an enormous gap between research achievements in autonomous drive and the active safety systems currently available in production vehicles. We propose a paradigm shift which looks at whole cyber physical vehicle/environment/driver and thus address all its three main critical components: (A) the vehicle/environment interaction, (B) the driver uncertainty and (C) the provably-safe intervention under the predicted uncertainty of A and B.  We will develop a novel science for  of Cyber-Physical Systems with the goal of obtaining a provably safe human-centric autonomy where  certification is evidence-based and evolves with the system (as new driver behaviors, scenes, slipping dynamics enter in the database of the CPS we construct in real-time). Robustness is measured against bounded state-dependent uncertainty of a driver/vehicle interaction model and of the scene reconstruction.

The award will run from July 15th, 2012 to June 30th, 2014.

Research Abstract:

The main objective of this project is to develop cost effective power electronics technology for smart grid application. More specifically, the emphasis will be on converter efficiency, size and weight reduction, as well as cost reduction. Effort will also be spent on isolated features.

Namita Lokare just started her PhD in Electrical Engineering this fall but is already working with staff from a company named Wildtrack (www.wildtrack.org) which has developed a non-invasive Footprint Identification Technique (FIT). Animals have unique feet, in the same way that humans have unique fingerprints and this process can identify endangered animals at the species, individual, age-class and sex levels. This allows researchers to monitor their status and work with decision-makers in environmental and conservation sciences to implement effective policies.

Once researchers have identified and measured features on the footprint, statistical software provided by SAS completes the identification of the animal. WildTrack staff are actively working with SAS staff on this project. Their algorithm is quite accurate, but requires humans to analyze the footprints, and the process of individually identifying the features of the footprint is very time consuming.

In attempt to speed up the process, Lobaton, Snyder and Lokare are developing image analysis algorithms to automate the feature measurement process. In the past, the footprints have been obtained using conventional cameras. In this photograph, the NC State researchers are shown using a three-dimensional camera to measure both extent and depth of the footprints. The work, if successful, will help to more rapidly identify individual animals, track them, and lead to improvements in the monitoring of their health.

The program recognizes individuals who have played a key role in making the Carolinas a global player in the energy industry.

Dr. Huang has been selected as one of 10 honorees.

He will be recognized at an awards luncheon at the Ritz-Carlton in Charlotte and in a Charlotte Business Journal special report on January 25, 2013.

Researchers will use the five-year, $9 million grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to design solar energy systems and installation and connection procedures that require little or no customization by homeowners and installers. The systems would set up quickly and connect to the power grid easily, while still meeting building and electrical codes.

"The high cost and hassle associated with installing home solar energy systems is a major barrier to their widespread adoption," said Dr. Alex Huang, the lead researcher on the grant and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the FREEDM Systems Center at NC State. "By developing standardized and easy-to-use technologies, we can significantly reduce the cost of these systems for homeowners, who would be able to install the systems themselves."

Today, much of what homeowners spend on solar energy systems goes toward supplier overhead, inspections, permitting, installation and other so-called "soft" costs. DOE estimates these costs at $2.50 per watt, a significant amount of money for systems that typically generate several thousand watts of power.

But by creating systems that "plug and play" - universal designs akin to USB interfaces in computers - the researchers believe they can drive these costs under $1 per watt. That means a homeowner installing a 5,000-watt solar energy system could save more than $7,500 in soft costs.

Researchers will use the grant to develop standardized panel mounting systems, communication technologies, electrical wiring designs, automated permitting systems, and other cost-cutting technologies. The group will work with codes and standards organizations, electric utilities, building and electrical inspectors, and consumers to tackle the real-world challenges faced by solar energy system installers and the local authorities that set installation rules.

Leading the project will be the FREEDM Systems Center, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center headquartered at NC State that is developing smart grid technologies. The NC Solar Center at NC State, which develops and demonstrates clean energy technology, is also a key player. Others involved include the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the University of Toledo, Isofoton, ABB and Quanta Technology.

The grant is part of DOE's SunShot Initiative, which seeks to make solar energy cost-competitive with other sources of energy by 2020.

Earlier this year, the team of researchers successfully sent a beam of neutrinos through 240 meters of earth with a message in binary code that read, "neutrino." The communication marked the first time information had been transmitted with the particles, which can pass through almost anything because they have no electrical charge and very little mass.

The story was featured on the Physics World website in March. The magazine made its selections from a pool of more than 350 news articles about advances in the physical sciences published on its site in 2012.

Neutrinos have long held promise for communications. As the Physics World story notes: "For ease of transmission through any material, nothing beats the neutrino. The ghostly particle is affected only by the weak nuclear force and, very faintly, by gravity. As a result, it can pass through almost everything and interacts with virtually nothing."

But, the story says, one problem makes neutrino-based messaging difficult.

"Although neutrino-based systems have been proposed since the 1970s, they have all come up against the same problem: how to detect the neutrinos at the receiving end when the vast majority of the particles will pass straight through any detector. To detect enough neutrinos to transmit information at a reasonable rate, either an extremely intense neutrino source or a very large detector (or both) would be needed."

About three years ago, the story continues, Dr. Stancil, was thinking about possibilities for communicating using axions - hypothetical particles that pique researchers' interest because they might be part of dark matter. From a communications perspective, axions are interesting because, if they exist, they could pass through any material. A former student pointed out that the concept could be tested with neutrinos at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab (FermiLab) outside of Chicago, where researchers were conducting a neutrino scattering experiment called MINERvA.

Physicists with the experiment agreed to collaborate with the engineers, so the lab's high-energy neutrino beam and multi-ton MINERvA detector were employed to send and receive the word "neutrino," which was spelled out in binary code as 1's and 0's.

Given the huge amount of technological muscle needed to send and receive one word, neutrinos won't be carrying messages for millions of people anytime soon. But the work does open up possibilities for future advances, including sending messages through the center of the earth and inter-stellar communications.

The team also included engineers from the NASA Glenn Research Center.

North Carolina State University Chancellor Randy Woodson announced on November 16, the inaugural group of University Faculty Scholars, a recognition and reward program for top NC State early- and mid-career faculty who will receive $10,000 ­- in donated funds - for each of the next five years to support their academic endeavors.

The program is part of the university's strategic initiative to invest in and retain top faculty. It is funded by generous gifts totaling $5.7 million: $3 million from Jim and Ann Goodnight and $2.7 million from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.

"Investing in retaining and attracting the best faculty to teach our students and lead innovative research that improves lives and enhances the state's economy is a key strategic goal for NC State," Woodson says.

"The generous support of Jim and Ann Goodnight and the Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust enables NC State to make this strategic investment in some of our most outstanding and promising faculty scholars, for the benefit of our students as well as the citizens of North Carolina."

Those eligible for awards include assistant professors who have been reappointed for a second term; all associate professors; and full professors within the first three years of appointment at that rank. Nominees were evaluated based on evidence of their significant achievements in scholarship, teaching and/or service appropriate to their rank and discipline.

Faculty members are nominated by their colleges and selected by a committee of senior faculty. Forty faculty members were nominated for the award.

She is an Internet entrepreneur turned record-setting marathoner. He is a multimedia communications pioneer who built an engineering school from scratch.

Seyhan Civanlar and her husband, Reha, owe much of their success to intelligence and hard work, but they also recognize the irreplaceable role that NC State, where both earned PhDs in electrical and computer engineering, played in their globe-trotting lives. So when they learned that an NC State contingent led by Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering, would be holding a dinner for alumni and friends in their hometown of Istanbul in July, they knew they had to be there.

"It was an excellent dinner and it was great getting to know Dr. Martin-Vega," Seyhan said. "And it created a networking platform for all of us here in Istanbul."

The Civanlars have followed a fascinating path from Turkey to Raleigh and back. They met in the 1970s while studying at Middle East Technical University in Ankara. The couple later married and earned their undergraduate and master's degrees.

NC State became part of their lives in 1981 when they both received Fulbright Scholarships to pursue their PhDs in the United States. They came to NC State with their infant son and lived in King Village.

Once in Raleigh, they focused on their electrical engineering studies. Reha was interested in digital communications and signal processing. Seyhan studied electric power distribution systems.

But life at NC State wasn't easy. The couple had a small child and two research loads to carry. What helped was the kindness shown to them by other students and faculty.

"Graduate students loaned us TVs, chairs and sofas," Seyhan said. "Everybody was so nice and accommodating. Professors would invite us to Christmas parties and Thanksgiving dinners.

"We never felt alone in Raleigh. We felt right at home."

They remained at NC State after graduation, Reha as a postdoctoral researcher and Seyhan as an assistant professor. She was the first foreign-born graduate of NC State to become a faculty member at the university.

A short time later, the couple moved to New Jersey for jobs with AT&T research labs, and that's when their careers really took off.

Reha found a niche working on the development of hi-definition television and Internet video; he later became the head of the visual communications research department at AT&T Research and received about 50 patents in the field. A landmark came in 1994, when at an international conference his group demonstrated the first high-quality, intercontinental video streamed live online.

"On one side was us and on the other side was Japan," he said. "We showed it was possible to move digital, TV-quality video over the Internet."

Seyhan also excelled, performing pioneering work in electric feeders and systems. In the mid-1990s, she led the group charged with building AT&T's Internet services. She later used that experience to found and lead Lemur Networks, raising about $6.5 million for the Internet protocol startup.

Anxious for new challenges, the last 10 years have seen the Civanlars traveling the world supporting each other. In 2002, they moved back to Turkey so Reha could teach computer engineering at Koc University in Istanbul and Seyhan could focus on startups in her home country. Then the couple moved to Palo Alto, Calif., so Reha could serve as vice president for research at a Japanese multimedia company. Seyhan, meanwhile, worked on starting a US subsidiary of a Turkish software company in Silicon Valley.

In 2008, Reha was offered an opportunity to return to Turkey and become the founding dean of the new engineering school at Ozyegin University in Istanbul. His job: Build a new engineering program from scratch.

"When I started at Ozyegin, it was just me in the entire School of Engineering," he said. "It was a very interesting and challenging task to find good people and grow the school."

Today, the school boasts about 900 students, 40 faculty members, five engineering programs and $7 million in research expenditures. By emphasizing entrepreneurship in the curriculum, Ozyegin has helped its faculty and graduate students launch several high-tech startups.

"This is a different approach in Turkey," Reha said. "We are the first ones doing it, and I believe my US engineering education and experience was helpful."

Seyhan recently began to seriously pursue an entirely different passion: running. She holds two Turkish records in her age group for the marathon and half-marathon, and her times have earned her a spot in the 2013 Boston Marathon, one of the most difficult marathons to qualify for in the world.

"I'm a late-blooming marathoner," she joked. "I'm lucky to have good knees and good ankles."

Now settled back in their home country, the Civanlars had the chance to re-forge old ties with NC State. Martin-Vega was scheduled to travel to Istanbul to be the opening keynote speaker at the 3rd International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, and he arranged to connect with people in Turkey who had connections to NC State. Also on the trip was Dr. Russell King, professor and director of the Furniture Manufacturing and Management Center in the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State.

"Meeting them both was wonderful, and Reha and I realized that there were a lot of people like us from NC State right here in Turkey," Seyhan said. "I now have a NC State engineering sticker on the back of my car."

An event celebrating the awards took place on NC State's campus Thursday, November 8th and recognized Husain, the ABB Distinguished Professor, and Bhattacharya,  the ABB Term Associate Professor, as well as five students who make up the 2012-13 class of ABB SmartGrid Scholars.

The professorships and scholarships were made possible by ABB's 2011 gift to NC State's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering that aimed to strengthen the organizations' cooperative research in electric power technologies and aid the company's recruiting of top engineering professionals. ABB - a global power and automation technology group and one of the world's largest power grid suppliers - has its North American headquarters in Cary, NC.

"We are delighted to recognize the outstanding faculty and students who have benefited from this generous gift from ABB," said Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering at NC State. "These talented engineers will be key players in a rapidly growing industry that is creating a smarter and greener electric power grid. We also appreciate ABB's significant commitment to the education of the next generation of power engineers and its support of this program."

Husain joined NC State in 2011 after serving as a faculty member at the University of Akron for 17 years. He has extensive experience creating and improving advanced motor drives for automotive and industrial applications, including electric and hybrid vehicles, and has also developed sensorless control methods for switched reluctance and permanent magnet machine drives. At NC State, he is co-director of the Advanced Transportation Energy Center (ATEC), a hybrid and electric vehicle research initiative. ATEC is located within the headquarters of the FREEDM Systems Center, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center that is developing smart grid technologies.

Bhattacharya, who joined NC State in 2005, works in the areas of power electronics systems, solid-state transformers, utility applications for power electronics such as flexible alternating current transmission systems, high-frequency magnetics, and application of new power semiconductor devices, such as those made with silicon carbide, for power converters. At the FREEDM Systems Center, his leadership of the solid-state transformer sub-thrust helped earned that work recognition by MIT Technology Review as one of the world's 10 most important emerging technologies. He previously worked in power electronics at Siemens and Westinghouse research and development centers.

The gift from ABB also created the ABB SmartGrid Scholars Program, which offers five awards annually to NC State students taking classes in power engineering. The field deals with the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power, as well as the electrical devices connected to those systems.

"One of our biggest continuing challenges is finding and hiring skilled engineers," said Enrique Santacana, president and CEO of ABB, Inc. "Our close relationship with North Carolina State helps us establish a pipeline of talented people for ABB and builds North Carolina's reputation as an important player in energy and smart grid technologies."

ABB and NC State have a long-established relationship. In 1991, ABB became the first corporate tenant on NC State's Centennial Campus, where the company currently manages two of its five North American regional divisions. Centennial Campus is also home to ABB's recently opened Smart Grid Center of Excellence, which includes a testing and development laboratory and demonstration center. ABB is also an industry partner of the FREEDM Systems Center.

The NC Department of Cultural Resources has produced a video tribute to Dr. B. Jayant Baliga, the 2012 winner of the NC Award for Science. Baliga is Distinguished University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Power Semiconductor Research Center at North Carolina State University.

Baliga invented, developed and commercialized the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT), an energy-saving semiconductor switch that controls the flow of power from an electrical energy source to any application that needs energy. IGBT-enabled applications, found in everything from cars and bullet trains to refrigerators and light bulbs, have saved the world's consumers more than $15 trillion and now help form the basis for the emerging smart grid.

The IGBT's widespread impact earned Baliga the 2010 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation's highest honor for technological achievement. He has been listed among the "Eight Heroes of the Semiconductor Revolution" by Scientific American.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering since 1993, Baliga holds more than 120 US patents and is an author of 18 books and more than 550 publications. He joined the NC State faculty in 1988.

"Computers are becoming faster and able to tackle more complex challenges, but they are also consuming larger amounts of electrical power," says Franzon, lead researcher under the DARPA cooperative agreement. "For example, the amount of computing power in unmanned vehicles is limited by the power supply they can carry."

To address that challenge, the NC State research team is tasked with designing a multiprocessor computer system that has a computing-to-power ratio of 75 gigaflops per watt. That means the system must be able to process 75 billion floating point operations per second for every watt of power used. By contrast, the most efficient processors currently on the market have a computing-to-power ratio of 16 gigaflops per watt.

"We plan to use 3DIC technology and heterogeneous computing techniques to develop what will essentially be a highly-efficient multiprocessor that would fit in a matchbox," Franzon says.

Franzon is the primary investigator (PI) under the cooperative agreement, which has negotiated options through 2017. The co-PIs, all of whom are also on faculty at NC State, are: Dr. Eric Rotenberg, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Rhett Davis, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. James Tuck, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Dr. Huiyang Zhou, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The authors propose an intelligent design of fast charging station architecture that ensures grid reliability. The critical component of their architecture is the energy storage, which is used to smooth the stochastic customer demand. "On the other hand, the choice of energy storage is application dependent; there is no single right answer. We developed a metric that enables researchers to compare the candidate energy storage technologies at fast charging stations.  Moreover, we showed that optimal charging strategies, depending on the type of the energy storage employed at fast charging stations can increase the number of vehicles charged with the same amount of grid resources. Since the deployment of fast charging stations is in its infancy stage, our contribution will provide insights to network planners," says Professor Devetsikiotis.

Islam Safak Bayram won the Student Travel Grant at a previous Smart Grid Communications Conference, and continues his work in this field. The Network Performance Research Group, led by Dr. Devetsikiotis is actively engaged in the optimization and control of Smart Grid networks.

VLSI-SoC 2012 is the 20th in a series of international conferences sponsored by IFIP TC 10 Working Group 10.5, IEEE CEDA and CASS that explores the state-of-the-art and the new developments in the field of Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI), System-on-Chip (SoC) and their designs. Previous Conferences have taken place in Edinburgh, Trondheim, Tokyo, Vancouver, Munich, Grenoble, Gramado, Lisbon, Montpellier, Darmstadt, Perth, Nice, Atlanta, Rhodes, Florianopolis and Madrid.

The purpose of VLSI-SoC is to provide a forum to exchange ideas, and show industrial and research results in the fields of VLSI/ULSI Systems, SoC design, VLSI CAD and Microelectronic Design and Test.

The presentation of the award came during the banquet at the close of the conference.

Co-authors of this paper were Drs. Daniel Schinke and Srikant Jayanti of Intel Corp. and Drs. Veena Misra and Paul Franzon, Professors of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State.

Neil Di Spigna is a research assistant professor in the ECE department at NCSU and the CTO of Polymer Braille Inc. His research interests include nanoelectronic devices and assistive technologies. Di Spigna received a PhD in electrical engineering from NCSU.

Daniel Schinke received a PhD in electrical engineering from NCSU. His research interests include digital circuit design and nonvolatile memory devices. He currently works for Intel Corp.

Srikant Jayanti received a PhD in electrical engineering from NCSU. His research interests include fabrication and characterization of high-k dielectrics/metal gate electrodes for advanced logic/memory devices. He currently is a process engineer for Intel Corp.

The original project was completed by Siam and two senior NCSU students and during the Spring of 2012. Titled "tcpreplay-NewConn," its purpose was to extend the functionality of the current Tcpreplay suite to enhance replaying functionality with TCP flows against live devices. By using the tool along with a packet capture of a TCP connection, someone would be able to replay the packets on live networks using new TCP connections. The tool will simply replay the entire packet capture and will communicate with the remote host as if it were the original connection, contained in the capture, happening all over again. The only difference is that it is at a new time and uses new TCP connection parameters. The tool is intelligent enough to respond to the remote host in an appropriate behavior that complies with TCP protocol by simultaneously following the payloads sent in the captured packets.

Being able to reproduce network traffic related problems can help manufacturers and software developers of network devices improve their products' resiliency against security and software vulnerabilities. The project was sponsored by Cisco Systems' Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT). Cisco PSIRT proactively tests vulnerabilities of Cisco
devices as part of Security Vulnerability Policy. The group collaborated and worked with Cisco engineers over the course of their Senior Design project during the Spring 2012 semester. By the end of the semester, they had a working tool that could replay TCP connections. With this tool, Cisco PSIRT was able to replay an entire packet capture as part of their testing.

Siam wanted to take his work a step further -- making it open-source software available to the larger networking community. During this process, Siam renamed this tool to "tcpliveplay" which is a more representative name of what it does, added extensive enduser documentation, and developed additional code to increase the tool's intelligence and usability. The handling of packet loss was improved as was user output statistics to help the user see both the fine-grained details and summary of the packet replay result. As of September 26 2012, tcpliveplay, with about 1,200 lines of code, became part of the Tcpreplay 3.4 software suite which was created and maintained by Aaron Turner, an enthusiastic supporter of Siam's efforts. The Tcpreplay software suite is downloaded 200 times a week from Sourceforge.net.

The scope and potential of tcpliveplay is much broader and wider than simply Cisco using it for testing. It can be used in all kinds of testing scenarios where there is a TCP packet capture that needs to be replayed against a live device. Siam plans to continue to support and improve the software -- increasing the intelligence of the code to allow the replay of multiple TCP connection flows at the same time, and to make the tool available on additional platforms beyond the currently supported Linux.

Cisco Systems and Panos Kampanakis helped sponsor the project and provided expertise in the subject area. Dr. Yannis Viniotis of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University was the advisor on this project and helped sponsor this project in collaboration with Cisco Systems. Other members of the Spring 2012 Senior Design team who contributed in the first stage of the project were Andrew Leonard and Beau Luck.

Details of the tcpliveplay tool can be found on the tcplivereplay wiki.

An article on Cisco's Blog was recently written about this project title "Student Project Collaboration with NC State University".

The Distinguished Service Award to Davis is based on his ten years of support of Si2. Davis was the first academic to adopt OpenAccess into his course work and lab exercises at NC State. This served to train fresh students in this new platform and expand knowledge in this new area.

Si2 is the largest organization of industry-leading semiconductor, systems, EDA and manufacturing companies focused on the development and adoption of standards to improve the way integrated circuits are designed and manufactured, in order to speed time-to market, reduce costs, and meet the challenges of sub-micron design. Now in its 24th year, Si2 is uniquely positioned to enable timely collaboration through dedicated staff and a strong implementation focus driven by its member companies. Si2 represents nearly 100 companies involved in all parts of the silicon supply chain throughout the world

The COE Faculty Senior Scholarship is awarded annually to a full-time student who exemplifies academic excellence, intellectual breadth and a depth of character. The recipient must be a full- time student with a projected graduation date in the following academic year.

Matt says that one of his immediate goals is to complete both the BSEE and MSEE programs at NCSU. "This goal will allow me to obtain employment in a field that I enjoy."

Matt would like to lead research in novel communications protocols and devices. "Digital wireless communications is proliferating at a fast rate and the frequency spectrum is a limited resource. Efforts are on-going in developing methods to use the spectrum more efficiently and I would like to be at the forefront of the field", says Purvis.

Matt has a deep desire to spark interest in science, math and engineering among rising generations. He says "Our nation is in need of youth that are interested in STEM disciplines. At some point in my career, I would like to take the opportunity to act as an educator or mentor to students in middle and high schools."

As a decorated six year veteran of the US Army, Matt was the winner of the 229th Military Intelligence Battalion Soldier of the Year, US Army Airborne School Enlisted Honor Graduate and the 3rd Special Forces Group Non-Commissioned Officer of the Year, to name a few.

Matt, who is married with one son, says that he and his wife are currently working to start a scholarship for non-traditional students pursuing an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. "We have faced many of the challenges returning to school in mid-life presents and would like to help other non-traditional students overcome those same challenges" says Purvis.

Currently, Matt works at Signalscape, Inc. as an engineering technician where he has been afforded the opportunity to work on complex projects ranging from wireless devices to custom handheld computing platforms.

Purvis, who has been on NCSU Dean's List since 2010, also serves as an On-Campus Events Committee Member for the IEEE NCSU Student Chapter. He also serves an Eagle Scout Mentor and Committee Member for Troop 331 of the Boy Scouts of America. He was also the recipient of the 2011/2012 Thomas J Martin, Jr. Memorial Scholarship and the 2011/2012 AFCEA General Emmett Paige Scholarship.

The research is also good news for battery developers. "This improved accuracy will also give us additional insight into the dynamics of the battery, which we can use to develop techniques that will lead to more efficient battery management," says Dr. Mo-Yuen Chow, co-author of the paper. "This will not only extend the life of the charge in the battery, but extend the functional life of the battery itself."

At present, it is difficult to determine how much charge a battery has left. Existing computer models for estimating the remaining charge are not very accurate. The inaccuracy stems, in part, from the number of variables that must be plugged in to the models. For example, the capacity of a battery to hold a charge declines with use, so a battery's history is a factor. Other factors include temperature and the rate at which a battery is charged, among many others.

Existing models only allow data on these variables to be plugged in to the model once. Because these variables - such as temperature - are constantly changing, the models can become increasingly inaccurate.

But now researchers have developed software that identifies and processes data that can be used to update the computer model in real time, allowing the model to estimate the remaining charge in a battery much more accurately. While the technique was developed specifically for batteries in plug-in electric vehicles, the approach is also applicable to battery use in any other application.

Using the new technique, models are able to estimate remaining charge within 5 percent. In other words, if a model using the new technique estimates a battery's state of charge at 48 percent, the real state of charge would be between 43 and 53 percent (5 percent above or below the estimate).

The paper, "Adaptive Parameter Identification and State-of-Charge Estimation of Lithium-Ion Batteries," will be presented at the 38th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society in Montreal, Oct. 25-28. Lead author of the paper is Rahimi-Eichi. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the foundation's Engineering Research Center for Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management, which is based at NC State.

"Adaptive Parameter Identification and State-of-Charge Estimation of Lithium-Ion Batteries"

Authors: Habiballah Rahimi-Eichi, Mo-Yuen Chow, North Carolina State University

Presented: Oct. 25-28, 38th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Montreal, Canada

Abstract: Estimation of the State of Charge (SOC) is a fundamental need for the battery, which is the most important energy storage in Electric Vehicles (EVs) and the Smart Grid. Regarding those applications, the SOC estimation algorithm is expected to be accurate and easy to implement. In this paper, after considering a resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit-equivalent model for the battery, the nonlinear relationship between the Open Circuit Voltage (VOC) and the SOC is described in a lookup table obtained from experimental tests. Assuming piecewise linearity for the VOC -SOC curve in small time steps, a parameter identification technique is applied to the real current and voltage data to estimate and update the parameters of the battery at each step. Subsequently, a reduced-order linear observer is designed for this continuously updating model to estimate the SOC as one of the states of the battery system. In designing the observer, a mixture of Coulomb counting and VOC algorithm is combined with the adaptive parameter-updating approach and increases the accuracy to less than 5% error. This paper also investigates the correlation between the SOC estimation error and the observability criterion for the battery model, which is directly related to the slope of the VOC- SOC curve.

The award will run from October 2nd, 2012 to January 1st, 2014.

Research Abstract

Compressed sensing is an emerging area where signal acquisition and reconstruction is possible for sparse and structured signals from a reduced number of measurements. The majority of compressed sensing research has focused on algorithms that are optimized to minimize the energy in the reconstruction error. We will instead focus on algorithms that can target a reconstruction that is optimized for any reconstruction metric, and in particular a minimax approach that minimizes the largest component-wise error.

"The goal of this short course, and the Digital Imaging Class (ECE558) being offered at NCSU, is to show the student how to accurately record, process and display images," says Dr. Trussell. "There is no way to accurately reproduce an image unless the data from which you are working is accurate to begin with. We teach the definitions of the quantities that matter and how to record them."

What do people know about how you capture an image? What goes on inside an image and scanner? How do we store that data? How do you display this image so that it's an accurate portrayal of the original? These are just a few of the questions that were answered in this course. "More and more, images are going online and more people are dealing with them. And you want to have the best interpretation of them." In the class, students studied the formats used to store and display images -- and how each affect the quality of digital images -- as well as the science behind (and practical application of) the calibration of scanners, cameras, flat-panel displays and printers.

"The accurate reproduction of an image requires knowing the characteristics of the display device, including what color it can produce and how to produce them." says Dr. Trussell. Between the capture and the display is the processing. And typical processing includes translating raw values into colorimetric values that can be used by anyone in the world, storing and transmitting data between devices so they can display the same image accurately. This is even despite different hardware and calibration of input and output devices. This will allows for the image data to be interpreted appropriately.

The image of Lena is used by many in industry and academia to test image coding methods. A typical copy of Lena is shown in Figure 1. You can see many reproductions of Lena by searching "Lena image processing" in Google Images. Dr. Trussell says "The images vary tremendously because the original data was not capture accurately and there is no conversion to a standard display format so that all the images, starting from the same data, would look the same."

The second image (Figure 2) is very nearly how Lena should look. This image was produced by capturing an original print of the image with a calibrated scanner and translating the data to a standard format recognized by most displays. "For librarians and archivists, it is important to preserve images and documents accurately, so they can be studied by researchers many years in the future", states Dr. Trussell.

This workshop was a semester's worth of information distilled from ECE558X "Digital Imaging Systems", a Graduate Level course being offered at North Carolina State University that has been geared toward engineers that are working in the digital imaging field. Dr. Trussell saw a need for a curriculum designed for those at the document level -- such as librarians and archivists who require accurate acquisition of imaging -- however the class was open to anyone with the sole requirement of having worked with images previously. The workshop was offered in July on North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus and due to its popularity is expected to be offered again during spring break or next summer.

For more information visit the Fundamentals of Digitial Imaging Website.

SACNAS is the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in the Sciences. The main goal of the chapter at NCSU is to provide mentoring between graduate students and undergraduate students who are underrepresented in the scientific disciplines. They aim to improve the public understanding of and appreciation for Chicanos, Latinos, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other underrepresented minorities in the sciences. This chapter will provide a forum for students from all science-related majors to come together for academic, community service and social activities at North Carolina State University.

As a chapter awardee, the SACNAS-NCSU has been asked to participate in the SACNAS Chapter Recognition Reception that will be held at the 2012 SACNAS National Conference in Seattle, WA.

Research Abstract

Autonomous navigation in unknown and dynamic environments has been a major challenge for synthetic mobile robotic agents. On the other hand, insects can easily solve such complex navigational problems and demonstrate remarkably stable and optimized locomotion skills in almost any environment. This project aims to develop a mobile sensor network where insects are used as mobile biological-robotic (biobotic) nodes. Insects, in fact, build a "natural" sensor network through the use of their biological sensing organs and release of chemical, mechanical and optical cues to communicate the information to the rest of the group. In the scope of this project, a novel cyber-physical communication network will be established among the individual insect in addition to the aforementioned natural one. For this, insects will be equipped with synthetic electronic sensors to sense additional cues, neuromuscular stimulation systems to direct the control of the insect and microcontrollers with radios to establish an RF link between the insects. This novel network will enable operation of insect biobots in complicated and uncertain dynamic environments for applications such as environmental sensing and search-and-rescue operations after natural disasters.

Baliga, one of six honorees, will receive the award Oct. 30 at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

Created by the General Assembly in 1961, the North Carolina Awards have been presented annually since 1964. The awards recognize significant contributions to the state and nation in the fields of fine arts, literature, public service and science. The awards are administered by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

"We are honored each year to pay tribute to men and women who embody the very best of our state with their imagination, exploration, creativity, and humanitarian service," said Cultural Resources Secretary Linda Carlisle. "They have made a difference in many lives."

Baliga is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in electronics engineering and has been listed among the "Eight Heroes of the Semiconductor Revolution" by Scientific American.

Baliga invented, developed and commercialized the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT), an energy-saving semiconductor switch that controls the flow of power from an electrical energy source to any application that needs energy. IGBT-enabled applications, found in everything from cars and bullet trains to refrigerators and light bulbs, have saved the world's consumers more than $15 trillion and now help form the basis for the emerging smart grid. The IGBT's widespread impact earned Baliga the 2010 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation's highest honor for technological achievement.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering since 1993, Baliga holds more than 120 US patents and is an author of 18 books and more than 550 publications. He joined the NC State faculty in 1988.

The other North Carolina award winners: writer Gary Neil Carden for Literature; saxophonist Lou Donaldson for Fine Arts; former NC Secretary of State Janice H. Faulkner and former US ambassador Bonnie McElveen-Hunter for Public Service; and sculptor Thomas H. Sayre for Fine Arts.

The award will run from September 19th, 2012 to February 14th, 2018.

Research Abstract

The proposed effort will investigate new approaches to building ultra low power computers.

Dr. Ozturk said, "This will be the first E-Beam Lithography System that NC State will have on campus. Prior to this system, users had to travel to other campuses as far away as Cornell University in order to use an E-Beam Lithography System."

An Electron Beam Lithography System is a direct-write system that allows users to try different patterns without having to purchase expensive masks used in conventional lithography systems.

Lithography systems use light to expose the photo-resist and the wavelength of that light determines how small the features are. NC State currently has a state-of-the-art conventional lithography system that operates at a wavelength of 193 nm (nanometers). This is referred to as "Deep Ultra Violet Lithography." At that wavelength, the machine NC State currently has, can write features down to 100 nm. The E-Beam Lithography System that NC State will be acquiring will be able to go down to 10 nm. Its much higher resolution over most conventional lithography techniques is its advantage.

Dr. Ozturk says, "One hundred nm is too large for state of the art nanotechnology."

Another advantage is that the E-Beam Lithography System will also work as an electron microscope, which will be located in the clean room.

"An Electron Beam Lithography System is essential for a Nanofabrication Facility to be able to claim itself as a Nanofabrication Facility" says Dr. Ozturk.

NC State has a large community of users that are excited about obtaining this system. Dr. Ozturk says, "We hope that this will be a major resource for our faculty and graduate students at NC State." This system will be available to users in every department and school at NC State and will be installed in the NNF (Nanofabrication) Facility.

Dr. Ozturk had co-principals (co-PI's) and senior personnel from different departments from NC State. The co-PIs and senior personnel provided paragraphs in the proposal that explained what they would do with the Electron Beam Lithography System. "Without their input, we would have not been able to win this proposal" says Dr. Ozturk. The co-PI's on this project were Drs. Veena Misra, Michael Dickey from Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Robert Riehn from Physics and Steven Soper from Biomolecular Engineering.

The total cost of this proposal, including cost sharing, was $1,371,370.

When developing computer models to predict the behavior of biological systems, an enormous number of variables come into play - ranging from nutrient concentrations to the presence (or absence) of specific environmental stressors.

In most cases, the value of these variables leads to a specific phenotype, or observable characteristic. For example, a tree growing in a damp environment is less likely to drive its roots deep into the soil. A tree growing in a dry environment is more likely to drive its roots deep into the soil, in search of water. The variable in this example is the presence of environmental water. The amount of water affects which phenotype is expressed - deep roots or shallow ones.

The range of possible values for a given variable that result in a specific phenotype is called an ROA. Using the previous example, the point at which the soil becomes so dry that a tree begins to send its roots deeper into the ground is the point at which it passes from the "shallow roots" ROA to the "deep roots" ROA.

And being able to accurately estimate the ROA, or range of values that lead to a given physical characteristic, for all of a system's possible phenotypes is an important part of the modeling process for biological systems.

"Accurate estimates of the regions of attraction of biological systems allow us to assess how systematic changes in control variables, and even changes in environmental stressors, can change the relative size of the ROA - making them larger or smaller," says Dr. Williams, who co-authored a paper on the research. "Changes in ROAs associated with plant metabolism, for example, can have a potential impact on the plant's ability to survive or adapt to changing conditions such as climate, drought, or pollution.

"Furthermore, if we understand what changes these ROAs, we may be able to determine how the relevant variables can be manipulated to minimize the likelihood of unwanted phenotypes - such as characteristics linked to premature cell death."

Most existing tools that estimate ROAs were developed for use in models that aren't designed to capture the dynamic nature of biological systems. And while a few, more sophisticated, estimation techniques have been developed, it remained unclear whether they could be used in conjunction with biological systems.

But now we're back where we started. Researchers from NC State have identified an ROA estimation technique that is compatible with at least some complex biological models - and may be applicable to many more.

Williams and Megan Matthews, a Ph.D. student at NC State, applied this technique - developed by Sascha Warthenpfuhl, et al., at the University of Wuppertal - to two biological models, and found the approach was able to successfully estimate ROAs associated with these systems.

Matthews is currently leading an effort to modify the technique to improve its accuracy, as well as determine how broadly the technique may be applied.

The paper, "Region of attraction estimation of biological continuous Boolean models," will be presented at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, being held Oct. 14-17 in Seoul, Korea.

The award will run from September 15th, 2012 to August 31st, 2016.

Research Abstract

This project will take a unique approach in examining how management and control of large-scale and distributed energy resources can contribute to both stabilization and improving the performance of for power systems with high penetration of renewable energy. The research will involve a system theoretic end-to-end analysis from detailed characterization of the energy sources through propagation of these inputs through the power transmission and distribution network. An important aspect of the proposed research is the ability of this interdisciplinary team to examine not only the technical and physical system challenges but to include the related regulatory, policy and market challenges that must be dealt with in order to implement any proposed power system changes.

The award will run from September 30th, 2012 to August 31st, 2016.

Research Abstract

Recent phenomenological investigations of the fundamental limits to the performance of radio, radar and sensor systems have revealed radio-frequency (RF) interference effects that do not have the expected integer calculus descriptions.  Some of these effects derive from electro-thermal diffusive interactions and it is believed that many other effects similarly derive from diffusion. Also, time-frequency effects have been discovered in which the temporal response of electronics excited by a pulsed RF signal is significantly longer than linear frequency-domain analysis would imply. It is believed that these derive from diffusion-like effects as well and require fractional calculus.  The project's premise is that using integer calculus-based analysis has resulted in sources of interference in RF systems being missed.  This project investigates the underlying physics of diffusive RF phenomena. Time-domain fractional calculus-based descriptions transformed into the frequency-domain become non-Laplacian (i.e. non-integer-based).  However, conventional analysis of RF structures is based on integer-based Laplacian frequency-domain analysis derived from integer calculus.   The project extends the engineer's RF analysis toolkit to include non-Laplacian models and abstractions. The work will lead to new paradigms for understanding interference at RF, for enhancing RF systems, for deriving fundamental limits of performance at RF, for developing signatures, and for manipulating RF electronics.

"Our aim was to determine whether we could create a wireless biological interface with cockroaches, which are robust and able to infiltrate small spaces," says  Bozkurt,  co-author of a paper on the work. "Ultimately, we think this will allow us to create a mobile web of smart sensors that uses cockroaches to collect and transmit information, such as finding survivors in a building that's been destroyed by an earthquake.

"Building small-scale robots that can perform in such uncertain, dynamic conditions is enormously difficult," Bozkurt says. "We decided to use biobotic cockroaches in place of robots, as designing robots at that scale is very challenging and cockroaches are experts at performing in such a hostile environment."

Researchers were able to precisely steer the roaches along a curved line.

But you can't just put sensors on a cockroach. Researchers needed to find a cost-effective and electrically safe way to control the roaches, to ensure the roaches operate within defined parameters - such as a disaster site - and to steer the roaches to specific areas of interest.

The new technique developed by Bozkurt's team works by embedding a low-cost, light-weight, commercially-available chip with a wireless receiver and transmitter onto each roach (they used Madagascar hissing cockroaches). Weighing 0.7 grams, the cockroach backpack also contains a microcontroller that monitors the interface between the implanted electrodes and the tissue to avoid potential neural damage. The microcontroller is wired to the roach's antennae and cerci.

The cerci are sensory organs on the roach's abdomen, which are normally used to detect movement in the air that could indicate a predator is approaching - causing the roach to scurry away. But the researchers use the wires attached to the cerci to spur the roach into motion. The roach thinks something is sneaking up behind it and moves forward.

The wires attached to the antennae serve as electronic reins, injecting small charges into the roach's neural tissue. The charges trick the roach into thinking that the antennae are in contact with a physical barrier, which effectively steers them in the opposite direction.

In a recent experiment, the researchers were able to use the microcontroller to precisely steer the roaches along a line that curves in different directions. Here is video of the experiment:

The paper, "Line Following Terrestrial Insect Biobots," was presented Aug. 28 at the 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society in San Diego, Calif. The paper was authored by Tahmid Latif, a Ph.D. student at NC State, and co-authored by Bozkurt. Bozkurt has previously developed similar interfaces to steer moths, using implanted electronic backpacks.

The paper, titled "Organic Packages with Embedded Phased-Array Antennas for 60-GHz Wireless Chipsets", was among more than 110 papers in computer science, electrical engineering and mathematical sciences that were published in refereed conference proceedings and journals in 2011 that were submitted by IBM Research authors worldwide

Dr. Floyd says, "The 60-GHz application space is very exciting, where the large amount of available bandwidth enables high-speed wireless communications for applications like uncompressed wireless HD video streaming across your living room and multi-gigabit-per-second short-range file transfer between portable devices. For these markets to flourish, low-cost electronics are required, which includes a low cost integrated circuit and a low-cost antenna and package solution. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time a complete packaged 16-element phased-array chipset solution with embedded antennas, based on low-cost organic packaging technology."

You can read the full article on the IEEE Website.

Abstract

A multilayer organic package with embedded 60-GHz antennas and fully integrated with a 60-GHz phased array transmitter or receiver chip is demonstrated. The package includes sixteen phased-array antennas, an open cavity for housing the ?ip-chip attached RF chip, and interconnects operating at DC-66 GHz. The 28 mm x 28 mm ball grid array package is manufactured using printed circuit board processes and uses a combination of liquid-crystal polymer and glass-reinforced laminates, allowing excellent 60-GHz interconnect and antenna performance. The measured return loss and gain of each antenna from 56 to 66 GHz are -10 dB and -5 dBi, respectively. Finally, the packaged transmitter and receiver chipsets, each working with a heat sink, have demonstrated beam-steered, non-line-of-sight links with data rates up to 5.3 Gb/s using 16-quadrature amplitude modulation single-carrier and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing schemes.

IBM Press Release

The NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST), to be headquartered on NC State's Centennial Campus, is a joint effort between NC State and partner institutions Florida International University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Virginia. The center, funded by an initial five-year $18.5 million grant from NSF, also includes five affiliated universities and about 30 industry partners in its global research consortium.

"Tackling the world's grand challenges is one of NC State's strategic imperatives," said NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson. "The ASSIST center holds the potential to transform health care, leading to advanced environmental health research and enhanced environmental policy."

With the addition of ASSIST, NC State is the only university in the country currently leading two active NSF Engineering Research Centers (ERCs), among the largest and most prestigious grants made by the engineering directorate of the federal agency. The FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid ERC formed in 2008, is also headquartered at NC State.

ASSIST researchers will use the tiniest of materials to develop self-powered health monitoring sensors and devices. These devices could be worn on the chest like a patch, on the wrist like a watch, as a cap that fits over a tooth, or in other ways, depending on the biological system that's being monitored.

Wireless health monitoring is already a fast-growing industry, but the self-powered technology being developed by ASSIST means that changing and recharging batteries on current devices could soon be a thing of the past. By using nanomaterials and nanostructures - a nanowire is thousands of times thinner than a human hair - and thermoelectric and piezoelectric materials that use body heat and motion, respectively, as power sources, ASSIST researchers want to make devices that operate on the smallest amounts of energy.

"Currently there are many devices out there that monitor health in different ways," said Dr. Veena Misra, the center's director and professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. "What's unique about our technologies is the fact that they are powered by the human body, so they don't require battery charging."

These devices could transform health care by improving the way doctors, patients and researchers gather and interpret important health data. Armed with uninterrupted streams of heart rate readings, respiration rates and other health indicators, as well as personalized exposure data for environmental pollutants such as ozone and carbon monoxide, sick people could better manage chronic diseases, and healthy people could make even better decisions to keep themselves fit.

On a larger scale, data gleaned from research studies employing these devices could prove invaluable to lawmakers crafting environmental policy. And if people using the devices make better decisions about where and how healthfully they live, national health care costs, which topped $2.5 trillion in 2010, could come down.

The center's headquarters will be housed in the Larry K. Monteith Engineering Research Center on NC State's Centennial Campus. There, ASSIST researchers will develop thermoelectric materials that harvest body heat and new nanosensors that gather health information from the body such as heart rates, oxygen levels and respiration data. In addition, the researchers will find ways to package the technology developed by the center into wearable devices.

The center's partner institutions will also play important research roles. At Penn State, researchers will create new piezoelectric materials and energy-efficient transistors. The team from the University of Virginia will develop ways to make the systems work on very small amounts of power, while the group from Florida International University will create sensors that gather biochemical signals from the body, such as stress levels.

The results of that work, coupled with low-power radios developed by the University of Michigan, will be used to process and transmit health data gathered by the sensors to computers and consumer devices, such as cell phones, so patients, doctors and researchers can easily digest it. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will provide ASSIST with medical guidance and arrange testing of the center's technology.

"We have assembled a comprehensive team that works together closely under a systems-driven approach to tackle this challenging set of global health problems," Misra said.

ASSIST also has foreign partnerships with the University of Adelaide, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

"The research conducted at ASSIST will help patients, doctors and scientists make direct correlations between a person's health and the surrounding environment, leading to better prediction and treatment of chronic diseases," said Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering at NC State. "The fact that NC State now leads two NSF Engineering Research Centers is a testament to our world-class engineering faculty, students and facilities."

ASSIST will also draw on the expertise of industry partners to help guide the center's work to the marketplace. These partners include companies and agencies involved in nanomaterials and nanodevices, integrated chip manufacturing, software development, bioengineering and health care.

The center will feature a nanotechnology education program, including an undergraduate concentration and a graduate master's certificate, as well as a personalized professional-development program for graduate students.

The center will also partner with 11 middle and high schools in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania to develop outreach activities that bring nanosystems engineering into K-12 classrooms. Students in partner high schools will have the chance to be involved in ASSIST research.

The five-year NSF grant for ASSIST is renewable for an additional five years and follows a two-year selection process by the federal agency. The grant is among a new group of Engineering Research Center awards that invest in nanosystems.

Dr. John Muth, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State, will serve as the center's deputy director. The ASSIST leadership team also includes Dr. Thomas Jackson, Kirby Professor of Electrical Engineering at Penn State, research director and partner campus director; Dr. David Peden, senior associate dean for translational research at the UNC School of Medicine, medical director; Dr. Benton Calhoun, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia, partner campus director; Dr. Shekhar Bhansali, Alcatel-Lucent Professor and head of electrical and computer engineering at Florida International University, partner campus director; Dr. Mehmet Ozturk, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the NC State Nanofabrication Facility, education and diversity director; Dr. Gail Jones, professor of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in NC State's College of Education, pre-college education director; and Dr. Ted Baker, associate professor of management, innovation and entrepreneurship in NC State's Poole College of Management, industry collaboration and innovation director.

The award will run from September 1st, 2012 to August 31st, 2013.

Research Abstract

The PI and team will investigate Geometric Phase Holograms (GPHs), polymer Polarization Gratings (PGs), and multi-twist retarders (MTRs) optimized for and integrated into projector systems, optical filters, and other devices.  The target is to employ optical techniques and materials improvements to develop these complex optical elements, and additional new ones, which produce enhanced performance or enable commercially viable fabrication.  As part of the effort, the NCSU team will coordinate and interact with the sponsor and with various third party vendors and partners, who are engaged by the sponsor, in order to facilitate access to advice, materials, components, fabrication tools, and independent verification supporting the research goals.

The award will run from August 15th, 2012 to July 31st, 2017.

Research Abstract

Multicellular organisms such as plants react to abiotic stress with a multitude of physiological and molecular responses orchestrated by key regulatory proteins, or transcription factors. Experimental datasets, such as transcriptional profiles, are often used to identify critical, yet, uncharacterized transcription factors in these responses.  Limitations in these datasets caused by constraints in experimental perturbations and finite experimental resources are the reasons why traditional approaches have revealed few key regulating and controlling elements, particularly in model organisms such as Arabidopsis thaliana.  The PIs hypothesize that additional computer-based simulations from dynamic gene regulatory models can be used in combination with clustering approaches to expand the perturbation space and assess secondary and tertiary control mechanisms, leading to the identification of hidden regulatory relationships between genes and transcription factors. They propose to develop a novel modeling and parallel computing paradigm to identify previously uncharacterized regulatory components that control iron homeostasis in A. thaliana across multiple cell types.

The interdisciplinary approach proposed by these PIs presents a new paradigm that 1) unifies novel genomic experimental techniques, engineering modeling approaches, and parallel computing to clarify the role of known regulatory elements and 2) identifies new regulating components involved in iron homeostasis within and across different cell types. Their integration of systems engineering, plant biology, and computer engineering will help create new solutions to existing problems and encourages a vision for addressing challenging issues that have, to date, remained intimidating using traditional approaches. Their results will lead to methods for stretching critical resources and increasing crop yields to feed the projected 9 billion people in 2050 through development of plants that exhibit improved function in low nutrient soils, or plants that can contain elevated nutrient content.

The award will run from September 1st, 2012 to August 31st, 2015.

Research Abstract

Motivation: A ubiquitous feature in many signal processing systems is to learn the input statistics from historical data. In these systems, Bayesian methods perform statistically optimal signal processing. However, there are applications including file compression, speech recognition, network monitoring, and compressed sensing in which it might be impractical to learn the statistics a priori. In such applications, a statistical approach that adapts to the data at hand must be used.
The information theory community has championed the use of universal algorithms, they achieve the best possible statistical performance asymptotically despite not knowing the input statistics.
These algorithms have had tremendous impact in lossless compression, where the goal is to describe data as succinctly as possible while allowing a decoder to reproduce the input perfectly. In sharp contrast, universal algorithms have had little impact on other areas.

The award will run from August 1st, 2012 to July 31st, 2015.

Research Abstract

Designing efficient and distributed algorithms has been central to almost all large networked systems. Examples include crawling-based sampling of large online social networks, statistical estimation or inference from massive scale of networked data, efficient searching algorithms in unstructured peer-to-peer networks, randomized routing and duty-cycling algorithm for better performance-energy tradeoff in wireless sensor networks, and distributed scheduling algorithms leading to maximal
throughput and smaller delay in multihop wireless networks, to list a few. Except for small-sized, static networks for which centralized design is not much of an issue, virtually all large networks necessarily demand distributed algorithms for inherent lack of global information and also randomized algorithms for autonomous load balancing and their resilience/robustness against possible points of failure/attacks, yet often with close-to-optimal performance.

All LC projectors - used from classrooms to conference rooms - utilize polarized light. But efficient light sources - such as light-emitting diodes, or LEDs - produce unpolarized light. As a result, the light generated by LEDs has to be converted into polarized light before it can be used.

The most common method of polarizing light involves passing the unpolarized light through a polarizing filter. But this process wastes more than 50 percent of the originally generated light, with the bulk of the "lost" light being turned into heat - which is a major reason that projectors get hot and have noisy cooling fans.

But the new technology developed at NC State allows approximately 90 percent of the unpolarized light to be polarized and, therefore, used by the projector.

The ImagineOptix-sponsored research team was also able to use the technology to create a small "picoprojector," which could be embedded in a smartphone, tablet or other device.

"This technology, which we call a polarization grating-polarization conversion system (PGPCS), will significantly improve the energy efficiency of LC projectors," says Dr. Michael Escuti, co-author of a paper describing the research and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. "The commercial implications are broad reaching. Projectors that rely on batteries will be able to run for almost twice as long. And LC projectors of all kinds can be made twice as bright but use the same amount of power that they do now. However, we can't promise that this will make classes and meetings twice as exciting."

Because only approximately 10 percent of the unpolarized light is converted into heat - as opposed to the more than 50 percent light loss that stems from using conventional polarization filters - the new technology will also reduce the need for loud cooling fans and enable more compact designs.

The technology is a small single-unit assembly composed of four immobile parts. A beam of unpolarized light first passes through an array of lenses, which focus the light into a grid of spots. The light then passes through a polarization grating, which consists of a thin layer of liquid crystal material on a glass plate. The polarization grating separates the spots of light into pairs, which have opposite polarizations. The light then passes through a louvered wave plate, which is a collection of clear, patterned plates that gives the beams of light the same polarization. Finally, a second array of lenses focuses the spots of light back into a single, uniform beam of light.

The paper, "Efficient and monolithic polarization conversion system based on a polarization grating," was published July 10 in Applied Optics. The paper was co-authored by Drs. Jihwan Kim and Ravi Komanduri, postdoctoral researchers at NC State; Kristopher Lawler, a research associate at NC State; Jason Kekas, of ImagineOptix Corp.; and Escuti. The research was funded by ImagineOptix, a start-up company co-founded by Escuti and Kekas.

Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.

"Efficient and monolithic polarization conversion system based on a polarization grating"

Authors: Jihwan Kim, Ravi K. Komanduri, Kristopher F. Lawler, Michael J. Escuti, North Carolina State University; D. Jason Kekas, ImagineOptix Corporation

Published: July 10, 2012, Applied Optics

Abstract: We introduce a new polarization conversion system (PCS) based on a liquid-crystal polarization grating (PG) and louvered wave plate. A simple arrangement of these elements laminated between two microlens arrays results in a compact and monolithic element, with the ability to nearly completely convert unpolarized input into linearly polarized output across most of the visible bandwidth. In our first prototypes, this PG-PCS approach manifests nearly 90% conversion efficiency of unpolarized to polarized for +/-11 degree input light divergence, leading to an energy efficient picoprojector that presents high efficacy (12 lm/W) with good color uniformity.

The award will run from August 1st, 2012 to July 31st, 2015.

Research Abstract

Recent advances in semiconductor technologies have led to fusion architectures, in which the central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) are integrated onto the same chip. Sandy Bridge processors from Intel and accelerated processing units (APUs) from AMD are such examples.

However, current fusion architectures mainly take advantage of form factors and CPUs and GPUs operate very similar to discrete parts. In this proposal, we make the key observation that fused CPU-GPU architectures enable new opportunities to address important challenges in either CPU computing or GPU computing, which is also referred to as general-purpose computation on GPU (GPGPU).

We propose novel CPU-GPU collaborative execution paradigms, in which CPUs and GPUs execute programs in a synergic manner. In CPU-assisted GPU computing, CPUs runs ahead either to warm up the shared data cache for GPU threads or to inform GPUs the thread organization for incoming divergent branches so as to improve the GPU resource utilization. In GPU-assisted CPU computing, GPUs will either profile the locality of CPU programs to improve the memory hierarchy performance or monitor the run-time anomalies to enhance the reliability of CPU execution.

Research Abstract

This project seeks to form a partnership for innovation between NCSU's FREEDM Systems Center, Duke Energy and GridBridge Inc., to speed up the translational research at the FREEDM Systems Center through market guided research and commercialization strategy.

Dr. Jake Adams will join the ECE department as an Assistant Professor beginning in January of 2013. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbania-Champaign in May, 2011. His teaching and research will focus on antennas and applied electromagnetics.

Dr. Mike Kudenov will join the ECE Department as an Assistant Professor beginning in August. He received his Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona in 2009 and is presently an Assistant Research Professor there. His research and teaching interests include biomedical imaging, remote sensing, and active learning.

Dr. Ning Lu will join the ECE Department as an Associate Professor beginning in January. She comes to us from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA where she is a senior research engineer with the Energy and Environment Directorate. She worked in industry prior to earning her Ph.D. in Electrical Power Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and has over 18 years of experience in electric power engineering. Her research and teaching interests include renewable integration, energy storage management and modeling, integrated information management systems for the smart grid, and climate charge impacts on power grids.

Dr. David Lubkeman has joined the ECE Department as a Research Professor in the FREEDM Center. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and comes to us with over 28 years of experience in electrical power systems engineering. His experience includes 16 years of faculty experience at NC State and Clemson, 3 years of consulting experience with KEMA, and 9 years of R&D project management experience with ABB. Dr. Lubkeman has had a number of occasions to collaborate with faculty in the FREEDM Center over the past several years, and we are excited to have him as one of us.

Dr. David Ricketts will be joining the ECE Department as an Associate Professor. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from Harvard and comes to us most recently from Carnegie Mellon. His teaching and research interests include applied electromagnetics, microwave and millimeter wave circuits, and nano-electronic devices and circuits.

We are excited about the wealth of knowledge and experience that each of these faculty members will bring to our department. We believe they will compliment our existing strengths nicely, and add valuable new insights to the department.

The IMSD program is an initiative at NC State whose focus is to increase in a meaningful way the number of students from underrepresented groups receiving doctoral degrees and entering into the professoriate in bio-related disciplines (e.g. Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Genetics, and Plant Biology). This program is funded through the National Institute of Health.

The assistantship will be awarded starting August 2012 where Megan will continue into the Ph.D. program in Electrical Engineering under Dr. Williams.  Megan will focus on applying mathematical modeling techniques and control systems theory to understanding how environmental stressors such as drought, elevated temperature, salinity, and elevated CO2 concentrations impact lignin, cellulose, and other useful compounds generated by plant systems. This multi-disciplinary research topic combines the fields of electrical engineering, systems theory, plant biology, and mathematics.

A Popular Challenge

This year's event, cosponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, is the NC State team's seventh consecutive challenge. Thirty-five teams from the United States and abroad are competing, up from 30 teams three years ago. NC State's team includes sophomores, juniors, seniors and Thunes, who graduated with computer science and mathematics degrees in May.

The Underwater Robotics Club prepares for this year's challenge at the Carmichael Pool.

Teams qualify by having their robot perform a long task list. This includes striking two or three buoys in a given order, navigating through an obstacle course, and placing markers within designated bins. "It's very intense," says Matthew Wiggins, a junior in computer and electrical engineering. Last year, the NC State team was one of four finalists.

What It Takes

To remain competitive and viable the engineers have worked in the evenings and on the weekends to get the robot up and running. There have been multiple setbacks.

For instance, two Sundays ago at the Carmichael Pool, the microcontroller stopped talking to the computer, causing the robot to shut down. Then, new electronics kindly donated by Intel haven't worked so well. "To be honest, something's gone wrong with every pool testing," Wiggins adds.

Added Experience

But morale remains high. One of the Seawolf V's distinguishing qualities is its binocular vision. The team has also built this year's robot from scratch, giving new engineers a chance to learn what robot making entails.

Thunes likens the competition to the business world. "The technical skills, the hiccups and collaboration is fantastic training and so helpful once graduating," he says.

URC secretary Michael Brown says the contest shows him how complicated systems truly work. "You can only learn this by doing," he says.

With less than a week to go, the team is convinced they'll do just fine. Prize money is $5,000, enough to cover travel expenses. Wiggins says this year's robot is even better than last year's. "We hope to at least make the final round."

Author: Debbi Gardiner McCullough | dgmccull@ncsu.edu | News Services

The Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program has been established by the Department of Defense (DoD) to support undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The program aims to increase the number of civilian scientists and engineers working at DoD laboratories.

Adam Wilkerson is pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at NCSU after completing his Master's in pure mathematics from Indiana University, where his focus was on Algebraic Topology.

While finishing his PhD over the next two years, he will be working on analyzing social networks using techniques in algebraic topology beyond graph theory. These techniques are a combination of ideas derived from the social science and network community and ideas developed in the study of sensor network deployments over the last 15 years. The idea is that pairwise relationships in a social network don't determine all the social structure within that group, and that higher-dimensional  data will shed some light on these holes in our understanding of human interactions.

After that, he'll be working in Huntsville, AL, studying sensor network deployments and continuing his social networks research.

Hamilton Scott Clouse is pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering at NCSU with an emphasis on pattern recognition. In the field of remote sensing, measurements are made from a distance with sensors of various modalities. Scott's work centers on the combination of phenomenological understanding and signal/image processing techniques to extract high-level descriptions of scenes observed in this manner. These data are of great dimensionality and, under the direction of Dr. Hamid Krim, Scott focuses specifically on geometric analysis techniques for such high-dimensional data.

The award will run from December 21st, 2011 to December 31st, 2012.

Research Abstract

NCSU will model AlGaN/GaN HFETs for TriQuint under the MPC/DARPA effort over the next 2 or 3 years.

Twice a year, NCSU will develop a time domain model of TriQuint's current GaN FETs,  validate it against TriQuint characterizations of devices, then simulate the operation. There are three devices in each interation, a depletion mode logic device, an enhancement mode logic device, and a RF switch. Quantities of interest include  Ron, Roff, propagation delay and transition energy for the E/D logic, and off-state reactance.

The award will run from April 4th, 2012 to January 22nd, 2015.

Research Abstract

GE Global Research in collaboration with North Carolina State University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute proposes a resilient multi-terminal current-link based HVDC transmission technology, to enable dynamic routing of electric power with high efficiency and reliability. The proposed technology is modular which allows system scalability to achieve any voltage and power rating. Each module is based on a high-voltage high-frequency power conversion topology in which the galvanic isolation is achieved by a high-frequency (20-50kHz) step-up transformer. Hence, the low-frequency grid side transformer is eliminated which results significant reduction in the system footprint. Due to current-link based power transmission, the proposed technology is naturally fault tolerant and hence it is suitable for multi-terminal HVDC system.

The nature of the proposed work includes both proof of concept and early stage device prototyping categories.

Following tasks will be executed to satisfy the technical performance targets of the proposed technology:

The award will run from July 1st, 2012 to June 30th, 2015.

Research Abstract

The proposed research addresses a long-standing issue of growing importance to the nitride-based optoelectronic technology, namely the internal quantum efficiency of nitride emitters in green-yellow region, and how the nonpolar/semipolar alignment of the active device regions can help to improve the device performance.  An in-depth investigation will be undertaken to gain a comprehensive understanding of the basic properties of semipolar GaN/InGaN LED structures produced by lateral sidewall growth. The dominating growth mechanisms, the defect formation and evolution, the In and doping element incorporation efficiency, and the strain in structures with different semipolar orientations will be studied, aiming to establish the best approach for producing low-defect-density semipolar LED structures with enhanced internal quantum efficiency.

The award will run from August 1st, 2012 to July 31st, 2015.

Research Abstract

For two decades, personal computers and servers have been powered by increasingly sophisticated superscalar processors. The last few years has even witnessed the introduction of superscalar processors into smart phones and tablet PCs, in order to provide richer user experiences. There are important trends in both domains: server-class processors require unsustainable design effort, as evidenced by a select few, highly trained, large design teams in industry proliferating superscalar processors; mobile devices are evolving at an extraordinary pace. These trends suggest it is time to take a radical departure in the way superscalar processors are designed. In particular, the PI proposes superscalar processor design automation. This project explores challenges and solutions at key levels:

"We're optimistic that expediting this process will unleash innovation in processor design," says Eric Rotenberg, a computer engineering researcher at NC State.

Manufacturers have been developing multi-core computer chips, or processors, for years. Each core is capable of processing computer code, executing instructions from a wide variety of software programs. Such processors are found in everything from cell phones to laptops.

But not all cores are created equal. Depending on their design specifications, each core has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, one core may be able to execute many operations in parallel, but not be very efficient at executing operations while retrieving data from memory, or vice versa. Thus, some core designs may be particularly well-suited to running multimedia programs, while others may be better for running database applications.

Most multi-core processors incorporate identical, non-specialized cores, which are designed to be fairly good at any task they might be assigned.

However, with the rise of multi-core chips, there has been a growing sentiment that computer performance could be improved by incorporating a variety of cores with different design specifications into a single processor - and assigning different computing tasks to the cores best-suited to handle those tasks.

But this approach poses its own challenges, because core design is a painstaking process involving the efforts of hundreds of engineers.

The first step in core design is to determine what the dimensions of a core's constituent components should be in order for it to excel at tasks with certain characteristics (such as executing useful operations while retrieving data from memory). This is called a core's "architectural specification."

Once the architectural specification is complete, it then needs to be effectively translated into an implementation design that can be used to physically fabricate the core itself. Moving from the architectural specification to the implementation design can take years.

Now a team of researchers led by Rotenberg has developed a tool that automates this process, allowing core designers to plug in the architectural specifications - and using those specifications to create an implementation design.

Specifically, the tool creates a "synthesizable register-transfer-level design" of the core. This design can be used to create the suite of manufacturing blueprints manufacturers need to actually fabricate the cores.

By automating the process, the tool allows core designers to move from the architectural specification to the factory floor in months, rather than years. "Processor designers will be free to create interesting ensembles of diverse cores because they won't be bogged down by the minutiae of core implementation," Rotenberg says. "In turn this will lead to faster and more capable computing devices that last longer between battery charges."

A paper describing the work is published in the June issue of IEEE Micro. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, Intel and IBM.

"Our nation's health, quality of life, and security will depend on the engineering achievements of the 21st century," said NAE President Charles M. Vest.  "The Frontiers of Engineering program gives young engineering pioneers the opportunity to collaborate and share approaches across fields. We believe those interactions will generate new ideas for improving the future."

The symposium will be held on Sept. 13-15, 2012, at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Mich., and will examine serious games, vehicle electrification, climate engineering, and engineering materials for the biological interface.  Alan I. Taub, retired vice president of General Motors global research and development, will be a featured speaker at the symposium.

The following engineers were selected as general participants:

Pieter Abbeel - University of California, Berkeley

Andrea Armani - University of Southern California

Muhannad Bakir - Georgia Institute of Technology

Billy Bardin - Dow Chemical Co.

Halil Berberoglu - University of Texas, Austin

Alexandra Boltasseva - Purdue University

David Brumley - Carnegie Mellon University

Xi Chen - Columbia University

Gian Colombo - Carpenter Technology

Xiquan Cui - Qualcomm Inc.

Frank DelRio - National Institute of Standards and Technology

Zhiqun (Daniel) Deng - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Jennifer Dionne - Stanford University

Nathan Domagalski - Bristol-Myers Squibb

Ayman EL-Refaie - GE Global Research

Michael Escuti - North Carolina State University

Joelle Frechette - Johns Hopkins University

Yan Fu - Ford Motor Co.

Weiying Gao - DuPont

David Garrett - Broadcom Corp.

Brian Gerkey - Willow Garage

Sayata Ghose - Boeing Co.

Anindya Ghoshal - U.S. Army Research Laboratory

Jordan Green - Johns Hopkins University

Piyush Gupta - Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent

Robert Hampshire - Carnegie Mellon University

Jessica Harrison - DNV KEMA Energy and Sustainability

Steve Hartmann - Medtronic

Reed Hendershot - Air Products and Chemicals Inc.

Elizabeth Hillman - Columbia University

Jeremy Hollman - Aurora Flight Sciences

Mona Jarrahi - University of Michigan

Michael Jewett - Northwestern University

Suzette Johnson - Northrop Grumman

Anupama Kaul - National Science Foundation

Scott Klemmer - Stanford University

LaShanda Teresa Korley - Case Western Reserve University

Christopher Kruegel - University of California, Santa Barbara

T.C. Michael Law - Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers

Chunhao Lee - General Motors

Steven Little - University of Pittsburgh

Xiang Liu - Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent

Jason Lyons - Arkema Inc.

Brian MacCleery - National Instruments

Youssef Marzouk - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Kristyn Masters - University of Wisconsin, Madison

Meagan Mauter - Carnegie Mellon University

Jason May - HRL Laboratories

Timothy McKnight - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Brett McMickell - Honeywell Aerospace

W. David Merryman - Vanderbilt University

Rahul Mital - General Motors

Mohammad Mofrad - University of California, Berkeley

Nathan Moody - Los Alamos National Laboratory

Elisabeth Nguyen - Aerospace Corp.

Nicholas Peters - Applied Communication Sciences

Desiree Plata - Duke University

Yadunandana Rao - Motorola Solutions

David Reeder - Cargill Inc.

Kate Riggins - Procter & Gamble Co.

Wallace Sawyer - University of Florida

Charles Schroeder - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Stephanie Severance - Cummins

Behrouz Shafei - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Leena Singh - Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Shukri Souri - Exponent Inc.

Joshuah Stolaroff - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Tong Sun - Xerox Webster Research Center

Kevin Turner - University of Pennsylvania

Kimberly Turner - University of California, Santa Barbara

Chris Urmson - Google

Peter van Beek - SHARP Laboratories of America Inc.

Sergei Vassilvitskii - Yahoo!

Kuansan Wang - Microsoft

Kevin Wasson - Corning Inc.

Ulrike Wegst - Dartmouth College

Jianzhong Wu - University of California, Riverside

Miao Yu - University of Maryland

Speakers at this year's event are:

Matthew Gevaert - KIYATEC Inc.

Christopher Jones - Georgia Institute of Technology

Eli Kintisch - Science Insider

Ben Kravitz - Stanford University

Helen Lu - Columbia University

Arindam Maitra - Electric Power Research Institute

Rahul Mangharam - University of Pennsylvania

Richard Marks - Sony

Cory Ondrejka - Facebook

Zoran Popovic - University of Washington

Lynn Russell - Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Jeff Sakamoto - Michigan State University

David Schaffer - University of California, Berkeley

Constance Steinkuehler - Office of Science and Technology Policy

Matthew Willard - Naval Research Laboratory

The organizers of the 2012 symposium are:

Kristi Anseth (chair) - University of Colorado, Boulder

Karen Burg - Clemson University

Li-Te Cheng - IBM

Michael Degner - Ford Motor Co.

Ali Khademhosseini - Harvard University

Sanjeev Naik - General Motors

Ben Sawyer - Digitalmill

David Sholl - Georgia Institute of Technology

Armin Sorooshian - University of Arizona

Sponsors for the 2012 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering are General Motors, the Grainger Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Microsoft Research, and Cummins Inc.

The mission of NAE is to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology. The NAE is part of the National Academies (along with the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council), an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide objective analysis and advice to the nation on matters of science and technology.

The company is commercializing technology developed by Dr. Michael Escuti, head of the Opto-Electronics and Lightwave Engineering Group in the College of Engineering, who earned White House honors last year. Company officials say the technology they're developing will allow anyone to easily share presentations, photos and movies with crisp and clear resolution.

"We're now shifting from 'research mode' to 'production and sales mode' with the technology," Erin Clark, president and CEO of the Cary-based company, explains.

ImagineOptix and its Fast 15 peers exemplify the university's commitment to helping researchers take cutting-edge research to the marketplace. NC State established the Fast 15 in 2011 to help achieve an ambitious goal: doubling the number of startup companies launched by the campus research community.

The university's New Venture Services supports the Fast 15 through customized support for faculty and student projects and startups. The goal is to create stronger, more viable early-stage companies that are poised for future success.

The Fast 15 includes a spectrum of experience, from teams just starting with great ideas, to startups focusing on discoveries with great potential for commercialization, and also young companies marketing initial products but needing assistance to reach their full potential.

NC State staff, faculty, industry leaders and entrepreneurs vet potential Fast 15 participants. New Venture Services, within the Office of Technology Transfer, then provides mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs, business launch planning and assistance building management teams.

"The designation also offers the startup companies visibility that helps to attract interest from investors and prospective early stage stakeholders," adds Russell Thomas, who leads New Ventures services. The Fast 15 project complements the NC State's partnership with the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network, which is working with several campuses in the Triangle.

Check out the Fast 15, listed in alphabetical order.

Certalgo

Small, highly transportable devices cool saline needed to induce hypothermia. With no refrigeration needed, they expand the situations where therapeutic hypothermia treatment can be used.

DiscoverLit

A concept for an e-publishing platform for short-form literature - serial novels, web fiction, poetry and short stories -has been put on hold as the developers focus on other projects.

Galaxy Diagnostics

A spinout from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Galaxy offers the most sensitive diagnostic test for the detection of active Bartonella bacteria, which infects animals and humans.

Huffines Design

These tactical defense accessories can be used in police and defense applications. The student designer anticipates licensing his patent to an established company.

ImagineOptix

ImagineOptix is developing the world's smallest, lowest-cost, and most battery-efficient "personal projectors" for consumer electronics. Additional products provide novel solutions to polarization challenges in optics.

Katharos

This filtration system removes blood phosphates during dialysis, extending the lives of those with chronic kidney disease and reducing or eliminating associated medications. Katharos is a joint venture between NC State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Knowit

This online, knowledge-sharing and curating platform enables users to share what they are learning with friends and followers.

Leiva Strings

A music education start-up company, Leiva Strings uses a color-coded learning system that enables individuals to learn to play stringed instruments faster - and with less frustration.

Oryx Bio

Based on Centennial Campus, Orxy Bio is a spin-out of the College of Engineering. Its bioseparations technology platform will improve the manufacturing of therapeutic biological products. Oryx acquired Ligamar in early 2012.

Nanovector

This nanoparticle-based therapy uses a plant virus to deliver therapeutics into a cell and its nucleus, technology developed in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Polymer Braille

A book-size electronic reading device for the blind and visually impaired will convert pages to Braille dots that rise up through the screen. The product could increase Braille literacy, a key for employment for the blind.

SPARKmoto

An intelligent, electric supercharger will improve the performance of motorcycles and cars.

Spitter Spatter

Ecofriendly, antimicrobial children's clothing will ease parents' lives. Look for products online and in select boutiques this fall.

Vapor Pulse

Using a new method for applying nanocoatings developed in the College of Engineering, Vapor Pulse has initial markets for fabric protection, defense, and healthcare applications. Vapor Pulse was selected for the Chancellor's Innovation Fund in 2011.

Xanofi

Using unique advances developed in the College of Engineering, this team produces quality nanofibers for filters and medical uses using a unique, liquid-based process. Xanofi is now operational with several customers.

Author: David Hunt | News Services

The award will run from April 20th, 2012 to January 15th, 2016.

Research Abstract
The project will evaluate and design a non-rare earth  electric machine concept for electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The machine will use a standard traction inverter commonly used in traction applications. The design is based on an alternative configuration of switched reluctance machines that can use the standard inverter topology. A prototype machine will be designed and built based on DOE specifications, and tested on an electric dynamometer for validation of results.

Researchers have shown that it is possible to transmit power wirelessly by using magnetic resonance. Even minor changes in how the transmitter or receiver is tuned, however, can result in faulty power transmission.

A new prototype developed at NC State addresses the problem by automatically - and precisely - re-tuning the receivers in WPT systems. The researchers focused on receivers because methods already exist that allow researchers to use electronics to precisely tune the transmitters.

"We're optimistic that this technology moves us one step closer to realizing functional WPT systems that can be used in real-world circumstances," says Dr. Srdjan Lukic, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research.

WPT systems work by transmitting magnetic waves on a specific frequency from a transmitter to a receiver. These magnetic waves interact with a coil in the receiver to induce an electric current. If the coil is tuned so that its resonant frequency matches the frequency of the magnetic waves, the current it produces is amplified. However, if the receiver and the transmitter are out of tune, the system becomes inefficient and doesn't transfer a significant amount of power. The receiver coil still picks up a trace amount of current, but it is not amplified.

This is a problem because many factors can affect the tuning of a receiver or transmitter, such as temperature or proximity to other magnetic objects. In other words, a hot summer day could wreak havoc on the tuning of a receiver.

Lukic and NC State Ph.D. student Zeljko Pantic developed an electronic prototype that incorporates additional circuitry into the receiver that does two things: it injects small amounts of reactive power into the receiver coil as needed to maintain its original resonant frequency; and, if the transmitter's tuning changes, the prototype can read the trace amount of current being transmitted and adjust the receiver's tuning accordingly.

"Because we are using electronics to inject reactive power into the receiver coil, we can be extremely precise when tuning the receiver," Lukic says. "This degree of fine-tuning maximizes the efficiency of the WPT system.

"The next step is to try incorporating this work into technology that can be used to wirelessly charge electric vehicles."

The paper, "Framework and Topology for Active Tuning of Parallel Compensated Receivers in Power Transfer Systems," is published online in IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and was supported by the Advanced Transportation Energy Center at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Pantic and Lukic.

"Our goal was to get the highest data rate possible, without compromising the fidelity of the signal," says Dr. Alexandra Duel-Hallen, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work.

Transmitting data within MANETs is challenging because every node that transmits and receives data is in motion - and the faster they are moving, the harder it is for the network to identify effective relay "paths" for transmitting data. This is because the power of the data-transmission channels fluctuates much more rapidly at high speed.

In other words, a transmitter may try to send a message through Relay A, because Relay A has a strong signal. However, because the transmitter and Relay A are both moving quickly, Relay A's signal might be weak by the time the message actually gets there. And a weak signal could result in the message being garbled.

To address this issue, researchers developed a method to improve the ability of each node in the network to select the best path for relaying data, as well as the best for transmitting the data that ensures reliable reception.

When a node needs to transmit a message, it first measures the strength of transmissions it is receiving from potential relays. Those data are then plugged in to an algorithm that predicts which relay will be strongest when the message is transmitted. By predicting the strength of the relay, the algorithm also tells the node the rate at which it should transmit the data. If it tries to send too much data too quickly, the data quality will suffer - the data could be compromised. If the rate of data transmission is too slow, the network won't be operating at peak efficiency.

The paper, "Enabling Adaptive Rate and Relay Selection for 802.11 Mobile Ad Hoc Networks," will be presented at IEEE's International Conference on Communications in Ottawa, June 10-15. The paper is co-authored by Neil Mehta, an NC State Ph.D. student; Duel-Hallen; and Dr. Wenye Wang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office.