Category: News

Dr. Anand Puppala, UTA civil engineering professor along with UTARI researchers Mike McNair and Cody Lundberg will collaboratively work on an effort to use unmanned aerial vehicles to remotely inspect highways and railroads and develop guidelines for how to safely complete the task. 

Contribution from Bell Helicopter Textron comes to IPPM

The Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies (IPPM) at UTARI has received a generous contribution of pre-impregnated composite materials from Bell Helicopter Textron. “The composite materials used in Bell Helicopter structures and in modern airplanes like the Lockheed F-35 and Boeing 787 are of special interest to the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies,” says Dr. Rassel Raihan, Faculty Associate Researcher. “A significant gift of such materials from the Bell Helicopter Corporation will make it possible to create and test new methodologies to predict the safety and reliability of such structures using some of the concepts and models under development at the IPPM.”

The gift from Bell Helicopter Textron was made possible through Vance Cribb, Manager of Non Metallic Materials and Processes with help from Justin Greenwood and Debra Macias.

Biomedical Technologies Division Head Muthu Wijesundara, along with Associate Professor Young-Tae Kim and Professor Khosrow Behbehani have received a grant for continued research of a “Closed-Loop Blood Pressure Control by Neural Stimulation for Cardiac Care Environment.”

UTARI research team Kris Doelling, Mike McNair and Jeongsik Shin along with Julienne Greer (College of Liberal Arts), Noelle Fields and Ling Xu (School of Social Work) have been awarded a grant for a project that will mix theater and social robotics.

UTARI’s Kenneth Reifsnider, Director of the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies was part of a distinguished panel for the Plenary Talk at the 17^th International Conference on Electronic Packaging Technology (ICEPT) in Wuhan, China on August 16-19, 2016. The conference offered attendees, experts, researchers and engineers from industry and academia numerous opportunities for discussion on state-of-the-art technologies in electronic packaging.

Dr. Reifsnider’s topic was titled “Frontiers in Material System Reliability for Product Technologies,” focusing on defining recent advances and challenges in the materials field and predicting behavior of heterogeneous systems as a genre of materials when driven by product technologies. 

Other notable speakers of this prestigious plenary panel included 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics winners Shuji Nakamura and Isamu Akasaki who developed a blue semiconductor laser on the basis of GaN, opening the way for a host of new applications of semiconductor lasers. 

A complete list of speakers of the plenary panel and their topics can be found at: http://www.icept.org/en/?page_id=21

Members of the UTARI research staff will be actively involved at twelfth annual IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), and will be held in Fort Worth Texas, USA, August 21 to 24, 2016.

The goal of this conference is to provide broad coverage and dissemination of foundational research in automation among researchers, academics, and practitioners. Dr. Frank Lewis is general chair of the organizing committee and Dr. Aditya Das is the Industrial Liaison Chair, and will also be presenting the topic “A Scalable and Rate-Independent Manufacturing Architecture for On-Demand Production” on Sunday, August 21 (part of the full day workshop starting 9 a.m.).  This workshop will focus on providing industrial representatives the opportunity to describe their needs, and academia to describe new tools and capabilities that they can provide. It is also an opportunity to introduce researchers into the area and foster collaboration so as to improve the state-of-the-art in warehouse automation.

Drs. Muthu Wijesundara and Jeongsik Shin will be leading a workshop titled “Automation for Assistive HealthCare.” Assistive device healthcare is one of the most important applications for researchers, engineers, and stakeholders looking to improve the human condition and quality of living through technology. Recent technological advancements in sensors, robotics, computing, and artificial intelligence allows for the development of systems with better compatibility in human use. This workshop will introduce participants to some of these new areas for automation in assistive healthcare.

A Scalable and Rate-Independent Manufacturing Architecture for On-Demand Production Workshop

Presented by: Dr. Aditya Das, PhD

When:  Sunday, August 21 at 9 a.m. at the Worthington Renaissance Hotel in downtown Fort Worth

Automation for Assistive HealthCare Workshop

Presented by: Drs. Muthu Wijesundara, PhD and Dr. Jeongsik Shin, PhD

When: Sunday, August 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Worthington Renaissance Hotel in downtown Fort Worth

UTARI will the exhibit the latest information on its multidisciplinary research in automation

When: August 22-24 at the Worthington Renaissance Hotel in downtown Fort Worth

Go to http://case2016.org/ for more information.

UT System ranks 4th globally for most U.S. patents granted

The UT System was ranked 4th among the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patent Ranking for 2015,UT System reported. The UT System release featured patented inventions by Frank Lewis, Ph.D.

Mike McNair, AIS director at UTARI and Manfred Huber, Ph.D. reviewed current and future technology regarding robots and their ability to help people with everyday tasks, according to the digital publication “Tech Insider.”

The City of Arlington’s monthly director’s meeting kicked off its “Put Technology to Work” series. Mike McNair, division head for UTARI’s AIS division was the guest speaker. His topic focused on the future of autonomous vehicles and their effect on government entities.

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Endel Iarve, Ph.D received key note speaker recognition at DURACOSYS 2016 for his topic “Computational Analysis for Durability of Laminated Composite Structures.” Iarve is congratulated by Kenneth Reifsnider, Ph.D, Director of The Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies at UTARI.

The 12th International Conference on Durability of Composite Systems (DURACOSYS) was hosted by the University of Texas at Arlington and Virginia Tech at the Arlington Sheraton in Arlington, Texas. Topics presented and discussed included the durability of composite materials and their aging, damage monitoring and analysis and failure predictions in materials. DURACOSYS is an international event and many speakers and attendees came from around the globe to participate in this four-day event.

Additional UTARI staff involved in DURACOSYS 2016 included Rassel Raihan, Ph.D who, along with Dr. Reifsnider, was part of the local organizing committee. Vamsee Vadlamudi was a speaker for the conference and won third place for the best poster. Andrea Arregoytia, Jared Beaty and UTA MAE department’s Sally Thompson coordinated the successful operations of the event.

The eminent local DURACOSYS organizing committee consisted of:
Vistasp Karbhari, Ph.D and UTA President
Mickey McCabe, Ph.D and UTARI Executive Director
Kenneth Reifsnider, Ph.D and Director of The Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies 
Rassel Raihan, Ph.D and UTARI, The Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies 
Erian Armanios, Ph.D and Chairman of the UTA MAE department
Andrew Makeev, Ph.D, UTA MAE department
Wen Chan, Ph.D, Director of The Center for Composite Materials, UTA MAE department
Seiichi Nomura, Ph.D, UTA MAE department
Haiying Huang, Ph.D, UTA MAE department
D. Stefan Dancila, Ph.D, UTA MAE department

For more information about DURACOSYS 2016 visit: http://www.uta.edu/mae/DURACOSYS/