An international team of researchers including members of the Department of Civil Engineering continue to develop building materials that will perform well when they are subjected to harsh environmental exposure. Various materials including reinforced concrete structures exist throughout the world, but their performance and sustainability is compromised in hot and humid climates, particularly salt water environments. In lieu of traditional metallic reinforcement, experiments are being performed...
A group of electrical engineering researchers developed an automated system to evaluate the conditions of outdoor polymer insulators. The system is intended to identify the surface conditions of silicone rubber insulators according to IEC standards using image processing and artificial intelligent techniques. A full lab setup was developed and successfully tested at AUS (see the figure below). The students who designed this system won the second prize at the IEEE Myron Zucker award. In a recent...
A team of faculty members and research students from the Department of Electrical Engineering announced the successful lab evaluation of their latest IoT in-house developed chip. The design involved advanced 65nm RFCMOS technology by Global Foundries. The design stands out as a breakthrough in energy harvesting high-efficiency electronic systems with best in class highest reported efficiency. The developed harvesting system can be used in applications including IoT sensors and smart autonomous...
A team of researchers from the mechanical, electrical, and mechatronics programs successfully designed, constructed and tested an in-pipe inspection robot. The robot is designed to provide a comprehensive solution to the navigation problem of an in-pipe inspection robot, by developing a robust navigation algorithm that enables high-accuracy localization. The work focuses on analyzing and carrying out navigation systems using commercially available sensors and integrates their measurements by...
A team of researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering successfully conducted a hydrogen fuel cell-powered multi-rotor drone. The drone is powered by a Proton Exchange Membrane hydrogen fuel cell (PEMFC) and is able to maintain steady hover and forward flight. The test flight was conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of using a hydrogen fuel cell in multi-rotor drones. Fuel cell-powered multi-rotor drones are capable of flying for many hours as compared to the traditional...
