Category: News

Alex Jamieson, Research Scientist II, has been published in the “Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology” journal. “A Review of Adaptive Equipment and Technology for Exercise and Sports Activities for People with Disabilities” discusses commercially available adaptive equipment and technology for exercise and sports that help people with disabilities circumvent barriers to exercise.

Individuals with disabilities face psychological, environmental, and resource-related barriers to participating in exercise and sports. The lack of participation in exercise observed in the disability community poses great concern to this population’s health.

Her publication highlights various categories of adaptive tools and their cost, accessibility, ease of learning, and progress level to help people with disabilities determine points of entry to fitness that align with their needs. Additionally, fitness-related businesses, fitness device developers, and researchers can leverage the discussed findings to understand gaps in this field to further advance adaptive equipment and technology and help facilitate widespread use. Full publication can be found here.

Dr. Muthu Wijesundara, Principal Research Scientist and Biomedical Technologies Division Head, is the recipient of over $450,000 for his Adaptive Spine Board Overlay. The funding is through The Trauma Research and Combat Casualty Care Collaborative (TRC4), an initiative of The University of Texas System. UTA received a total of $781,064 through the program. TRC4 grants will fund groundbreaking trauma research, product development, and preventative measures across UT institutions.

There are four Directed Award grants totaling $3,250,000 and 49 Competitive Award grants totaling $14,787,863. Recipients represent ten UT institutions across the UT System and include strategic collaborations, including the Department of Defense.

The areas of research for these grants include clinical research, early career mentored research, pre-clinical and translational research, and proof of concept research.

The program focus areas included pre-hospital care, innovative and novel surgical support technologies, innovative and novel devices, drugs, and therapies, clinical practice techniques, trauma system registries and information management, and advanced complex wound management.

UTARI’s Biomedical Research Division, led by Dr. Muthu Wijesundara, Principal Research Division, has two new publications.

“Smart Seat Cushion Feasibility Pilot Study: Automated Interface Pressure Modulation of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury,” was published in Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology. Researchers include Aida Nasirian, Veysel Erel, Pavan Nuthi, Yixin Gu, Melissa Allman, Faith Meza, Seema Sikka and Muthu B. J. Wijesundara. Paper can be accessed here.

The study investigates the functionality and feasibility of a novel smart seat cushion system designed for wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries.

“Soft Robotic Bilateral Rehabilitation System for Hand and Wrist Joints” was published in Machines 2024. Researchers included Tanguy Ridremont, Inderjeet Singh, Baptiste Bruzek, Veysel Erel, Alexandra Jamieson, Yixin Gu, Rochdi Merzouki and Muthu B. J. Wijesundara. Paper can be accessed here.

The research focuses on a soft robotic exoskeleton capable of coordinated assisted movement of the hand and wrist joints as well as bilateral therapy when used with a motion sensor glove that captures non-paretic hand and wrist movement. The paper shows the development and preliminary testing of the hand and wrist soft-robotic bilateral therapy system and associated control algorithm, which has the potential to be used with post-stroke patients to help them regain their hand and wrist functions.

Dr. Xin Liu received the ASME/Boeing Materials and Structures Award at the ASME Aerospace Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials (SSDM) Conference in Renton, Washington. This award is for his paper “Machine Learning-Aided Cohesive Zone Modeling of Fatigue Delamination”. This work is to utilize advanced machine learning models to reduce the computational costs of material calibration for fatigue simulations of composite materials. The paper is collaborative work between UTA, AnalySwift LLC,  Dassault Systèmes, and Purdue University.

ASME is a not-for-profit membership organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and skills development across all engineering disciplines, toward a goal of helping the global engineering community develop solutions to benefit lives and livelihoods. SSDM provides a unique forum to bring together all industry, government, and academia stakeholders to share the latest research and developments in the established disciplines of structures, structural dynamics, and materials and their related areas.

UTARI student research assistant, Harish Nambiappan, along with students Ayon Roy and Sama Nikanfar, took home first place for their project “Human-Robot Interactive System for Warehouses using Speech, SLAM, and Deep Learning-based Barcode Recognition” at UTA’s College of Engineering Innovation Day.

The paper presents an initial investigation of a speech-based human-robot interaction system for locating items in a warehouse environment. The purpose relates do those with sight impairment, in that people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) remain underemployed due to hesitancy in hiring. Novel interfaces like speech recognition and human-robot interaction are pivotal for inclusive workplace environments.

You can learn more and access the poster here.

Twinkle Kothari, a PhD student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and UTARI Research Assistant was honored with the Judges’ Choice Award at the College of Engineering Innovation Day. Her project, “Design and Analysis of Reinforced I-Beam Lattice with Enhanced Energy Absorption” aims to enhance the stiffness, yield strength, and energy absorption capabilities of beam lattices.

The research findings offer valuable insights for the development of innovative lightweight lattice structures with enhanced durability and performance. They find applications ranging from automotive chassis, and wing ribs to sandwich cores. You can access the research poster here.

Hundreds of faculty, students and business leaders flocked to The University of Texas at Arlington for its second annual Research and Innovation Expo, an event designed to showcase the University’s research efforts.

Researchers learned how to find external funding for their projects from such varied sources as federally funded government organizations like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, private foundations, or industry leaders who need technology solutions to advance their companies.

Entire story here.

Organized by Sharmin Akter, a graduate student research assistant for the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies (IPPM), UTARI hosted the Composite Manufacturing Workshop. Its purpose was to gain hands-on experience on composite manufacturing processes, including layup technologies. Participants discovered the diverse applications of composites in cutting-edge industries and explored internship opportunities.

Mentors included UTARI’s Dr. Rassel Raihan and Dr. Shiyao Lin. The event was hosted by the Material State Awareness and Sustainability Lab and UTARI, in association with The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE).