Category: News

Dr. Frank Lewis’s, Moncrief-O’Donnell Endowed Chair, Professor, Electrical Engineering Fellow, National Academy of Inventors, book Integral and Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Optimal Control Systems and Games has been published. Advances in Industrial Control is a series of monographs and contributed titles focusing on the applications of advanced and novel control methods within applied settings.

The series has worldwide distribution to engineers, researchers and libraries. It promotes the exchange of information between academia and industry, to which end the books all demonstrate some theoretical aspect of an advanced or new control method and show how it can be applied either in a pilot plant or in some real industrial situation.

Co-authors are Dr. Bosen Lian, Dr. Wenqian Xue, Dr. Hamidreza Modares, and Dr. Bahare Kiumarsi. More about the book can be accessed here.

Dr. Nick Gans, head of UTARI’s Automation and Intelligent Systems Division and Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, and Cody Lundberg, Research Scientist II, has been awarded a patent for “Camera and Sensor System for Measurement of Road Surface Deflection.” Gans and Lundberg collaborated with Novateur Research Solutions on an Army Phase 1 and 2 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) to build super-high resolution 3D road surface maps by fusing data from standard cameras and high-resolution 3D stereo line scans, resulting in the awarded patent.

Inventors include UTARI’s Dr. Nick Gans, Cody Lundberg, Michael Arouja, as well as Novateur’s Dr. Zeeshan Rasheed, Dr. Dr. Khurram Hassan Shafique, Maoxu Li.

The patent can be accessed here.

Before a new autonomous system is set loose in the world, it must be thoroughly tested. That’s where the Autonomous Systems Lab at the UTA Research Institute (UTARI) steps in. Small companies that develop technologies to control autonomous vehicles or to counter unmanned aircraft system (UAS) applications often do not have the ability to test their technology. The Autonomous Systems Lab has the expertise and equipment to design, test, and program robots and unmanned vehicles—often in tandem with small businesses—to ensure that they will perform as expected.

“The sheer number of vehicles we have and the amount of space available to us allow us to do all kinds of testing, from heterogeneous swarms of robots to augmented reality to a system that can track human motion inside a building,” says Nick Gans, UTARI’s division head for Automation and Intelligent Systems. “We also provide research and design support to test autonomous systems indoors and outdoors, and we can provide access to other technologies that most small companies don’t have.” Full article can be accessed here.

Dr. Ye Cao, Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, has earned a five-year, $500,000 CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to make computer processing of large amounts of data faster and more efficient with devices called memristors.

Applications such as deep learning require computers that can process large amounts of data. They also necessitate a lot of cycling between computing and processing in different places on the computer. One solution to make this more efficient is in-memory computing, which requires memristors—a type of material device that can be programmed to change its electrical resistance states in response to computing needs. Access full article here.

Dr. Nick Gans, Head of UTARI’s Automation and Intelligent Systems division and Associate Professor, Computer Science & Engineering, is a recipient of the University of Texas System Rising Star Award. STARs Awards of up to $300,000 may be made for recruitment or retention of promising faculty members who are recruited in a tenure-track position at any academic level, i.e. assistant, associate or full professor.

UT System STARs funds are meant to supplement institutional resources for the purpose of recruiting and/or retaining the very best research-active faculty. Successful nominees will have a firm institutional commitment of the amount awarded by UT System. STARs funds are specifically for purchase of equipment and renovation of facilities required as part of the recruitment and/or retention of particularly outstanding faculty.

Fillia Makedon, a Distinguished Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been awarded two new National Science Foundation (NSF) grants involving human-computer interaction. In one, she will study extended reality to assess attention levels in people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD); in the other, she will look at how human-robot interaction could help visually impaired persons perform job duties remotely from home using telerobotic technologies.

The NSF awarded Dr. Makedon $440,758 through its Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research program, which supports work in its early stages on untested, but potentially transformative research ideas or approaches.

Makedon is teaming up with Dr. Nick Gans, Head of the Automation and Intelligent Systems Division at the UTA Research Institute, and Austin Lighthouse, a warehouse that employs and trains visually impaired and blind people. Together, they will explore the potential for people who are visually impaired to use telerobots to carry out physical tasks remotely. (With the telerobots, the human operator can receive sensor feedback and is in control of navigation and control.) Access full article here.

Two University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI) students from Material State Assessment and Sustainability (MSAS) Lab made significant impressions at the Composites and Advanced Materials Expo (CAMX) 2024 and University Research Symposium (URS) held in San Diego, CA from September 7-12, 2024.

Sharif Sakif Hassan and Connor Berberek, undergraduate mechanical engineering students, secured third place in the poster competition with their research on “Synthesis and Characterization of Silicon Carbide Ceramic Nanofibers.” Hassan and Connor’s work, conducted during the summer of 2024, caught the attention of the review committee, earning them the 3rd place certificate. Hassan and Connor, along with another undergraduate student Arturo Chavez Garcia, were sponsored by the SAMPE Student Chapter at UT Arlington to attend CAMX 2024 at San Diego, covering travel and accommodation expenses.

Meanwhile, Monjur Morshed Rabby, a PhD student, was selected as a finalist in the PhD category of the URS. The student presented research on “Damage Levels Detection in Polymer Composites: Machine Learning Approaches with Dielectric Variables and Damage Progression Modeling,” showcasing innovative applications of AI in materials science. Rabby is also serving as the President of SAMPE Student Chapter at UTA.

The CAMX conference and expo organized by SAMPE offered a platform for students to expand their knowledge of composites, gather information on diverse applications, and receive structured feedback from experts. The event, which featured nearly 500 companies, provided invaluable networking opportunities with industry professionals, researchers, and CEOs from around the globe. This experience is expected to fuel further research and collaborations in the field of advanced materials and composites.

Foot ulcers are strongly related to diabetes mellitus and arise from secondary complications of the disease. Although many factors contribute to the development of ulcers, the major contributors are peripheral neuropathy, poor blood circulation, foot deformities, and an impaired immune response.

High blood sugar levels can damage nerves, particularly in the distal part of the body, such as the feet. This condition, known as diabetic neuropathy, reduces sensation in the feet, making it difficult to feel pain, heat or cold. As a result, injuries or sores on the feet may go unnoticed, leading to ulcers. One of the main ways that diabetic neuropathy contributes to foot ulcers is the repetitive stress put on skin and muscle tissues during walking. Unlike people with intact pain perception, people with diabetic neuropathy do not alter their walking pattern, which results in repetitively loading the same areas of the foot during walking. This repetitive loading can lead to tissue and skin breakdown, causing foot ulcers. People with diabetic neuropathy may also not feel sharp objects and extreme temperature changes on their feet, which can result in foot injury and foot ulcers. Lean more about Dr. Wijesundara’s research in the full article here.

The MSAS Lab at IPPM-UTARI, organized a special summer research program for high school students. Four participants – Jesus Aguire from Cassata Catholic High School, and Ayshi Abed, Farris Syed, and Fayek Syed from Colleyville Heritage High School – received training in Composite Manufacturing, Materials Testing, Electrospinning, and basic Python Programming.

The program aimed to introduce young minds to advanced scientific concepts and research methodologies. Students gained hands-on experience with cutting-edge equipment and techniques, bridging the gap between high school education and university-level research. This initiative not only provided valuable experience but also aimed to spark lasting interest in STEM fields among the participants. You can watch the student testimonials here.

UTARI has welcomed students, Sharmin Akter and Monjur Morshed Rabby, as research assistants under the “Dr. Robert E. Schafrik Endowment for Materials Engineering Research”. The research assistants will be working with UTARI’s Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies (IPPM).

Akter will focus research on structural battery. Rabby’s research will focus on recycling or repurposing of fiber-reinforced composite waste.

In 2019, Mary Schafrik, the wife of the late Dr. Robert Schafrik, established an endowment at UTARI to support student research in areas of advanced materials. Dr. Scharik, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, was a world expert in materials and manufacturing. He was also the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Industrial, Systems and Manufacturing Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington.