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Making battlefield communications better

jkullman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:39:13 -0700

Junshan Zhang is working to improve wireless communications technology with support from a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Zhang is an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, a part of Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. He also works in the engineering schools’ Sensor, Signal and Information Processing Center (SenSIP).

The grant of more than $600,000 will fund Zhang’s efforts to improve the reliability of communications networks under battlefield conditions.

"Battlefield wireless networks often operate under hostile conditions that include adverse radio frequency environments, interference, bursts of traffic and changing network topology,” Zhang explains. “As a result, network management of information flows in such a hostile environment often faces a number of challenges, such as network failure and compromise, and intermittent connectivity.”

There is an “urgent need to develop fundamental network science for identifying, representing and controlling information dynamics” in Department of Defense networks, Zhang says.

Advances in this area of research also promise to provide more reliability for various types of airborne and ground-based communications networks.

Zhang’s work is ASU’s part of a larger project, titled “Information Dynamics as a Foundation for Network Management,” led by Princeton University, with other research partners at the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California- Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

Zhang’s grant is part of a $7 million MURI award for the overall project.

The MURI program is designed to accelerate research and technology development that supports specific science and engineering efforts considered vital to national defense.

Writer: Chelsea Brown

Making battlefield communications better

jkullman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:39:13 -0700

Junshan Zhang is working to improve wireless communications technology with support from a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The grant of more than $600,000 will fund Zhang’s efforts to improve the reliability of communications networks under battlefield conditions.

There is an “urgent need to develop fundamental network science for identifying, representing and controlling information dynamics” in Department of Defense networks, Zhang says.

Advances in this area of research also promise to provide more reliability for various types of airborne and ground-based communications networks.

Zhang’s grant is part of a $7 million MURI award for the overall project.

The MURI program is designed to accelerate research and technology development that supports specific science and engineering efforts considered vital to national defense.

Writer: Chelsea Brown

Making battlefield communications better

jkullman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:39:13 -0700

Junshan Zhang is working to improve wireless communications technology with support from a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The grant of more than $600,000 will fund Zhang’s efforts to improve the reliability of communications networks under battlefield conditions.

There is an “urgent need to develop fundamental network science for identifying, representing and controlling information dynamics” in Department of Defense networks, Zhang says.

Advances in this area of research also promise to provide more reliability for various types of airborne and ground-based communications networks.

Zhang’s grant is part of a $7 million MURI award for the overall project.

The MURI program is designed to accelerate research and technology development that supports specific science and engineering efforts considered vital to national defense.

Writer: Chelsea Brown

In the news: ASU aerospace industry alliances

jkullman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:30:12 -0700

Assistant professor of mechanical engineering Henry Sodano and Gregory Ehlert, a graduate research associate in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical and Materials Engineering, are featured in an ASU State Press/Web Devil article about ways their research is benefitting the aerospace industry.

Sodano and Ehlert are working with new types of composite materials that have the potential to help aerospace companies such as Boeing increase their use of advanced technologies as well as expand business opportunities.

See “Research takes flight with Boeing alliance”

In the news: ASU aerospace industry alliances

jkullman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:30:12 -0700

See “Research takes flight with Boeing alliance”

Kashiwagi honored for achievement as educator

jkullman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:56:10 -0700

Arizona State University professor Dean Kashiwagi has won the International Facility Management (IFMA) Association 2009 Distinguished Educator Award, recognizing numerous accomplishments in research as well as in teaching.

Kashiwagi is a professor in the Del E. Webb School of Construction, a part of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

The IFMA is the world’s largest international association for professional facility managers, supporting more than 19,500 members in 60 countries. The association’s members manage more than 37 billion square feet of property around the world.

The organization particularly cited Kashiwagi’s use of resources provided by a prestigious Fulbright Scholar grant he was awarded in 2008 to develop a project to bring state-of-the-art facility and project management research and practices to Botswana, Africa in the past year.

For details on the Botswana project, see http://engineering.asu.edu/news/2869

The award also honors Kashiwagi’s work to establish a “groundbreaking” Facilities Management Model of the Future graduate program at ASU.

Kashiwagi is the director of ASU’s Performance Based Studies Research Group. It focuses on applying concepts for improving efficiency and performance, and minimizing risk, in project management, as well as for organizations and businesses.

Winners of the IFMA’s Awards of Excellence were presented in October at the organization’s annual banquet, part of IFMA’s World Workplace 2009 Conference & Expo at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.

Kashiwagi honored for achievement as educator

jkullman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:56:10 -0700

Kashiwagi is a professor in the Del E. Webb School of Construction, a part of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

For details on the Botswana project, see http://engineering.asu.edu/news/2869

The award also honors Kashiwagi’s work to establish a “groundbreaking” Facilities Management Model of the Future graduate program at ASU.

ASU undergrads display research work at symposium

jkullman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:15:03 -0700

Arizona State University undergraduate students will again showcase their research in biotechnology, alternative energy sources, robotics, and a wide range of engineering and science fields at the 10th semi-annual Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI) Symposium from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 20.

More than 80 students will exhibit posters detailing their FURI program research projects on the west patio of the Engineering Center, G-Wing, at ASU's Tempe campus. FURI is one of the few university programs in the country that enables undergraduates to get valuable hands-on experience in significant research.

A program of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, FURI has grown since its inception in 2005 to become one of the largest of such programs. To participate, students must go through an extensive application process during which their qualifications are reviewed by a school-wide committee.

“Our goal is for each student to walk away from the program having had a great research experience that will help with their transition into graduate school, into the work force, or to any other career path they may choose,” says Christine MacLeod, the program’s director.

FURI Symposiums, presented once each Fall and Spring semester, is open to the public. More than 200 people, including Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Dean Deirdre Meldrum and other ASU engineering research leaders, are expected to attend.

The Spring semester symposium is scheduled for April 23, 2010.

For more on the FURI program, visit http://engineering.asu.edu/furi. A video on FURI can be viewed at http://engineering.asu.edu/video or http://asunews.asu.edu/20090608_video_furi.

Writer: Chelsea Brown

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ASU undergrads display research work at symposium

jkullman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:15:03 -0700

Writer: Chelsea Brown

Media contact:

Rittmann makes big challenges seem small

jkullman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:52:37 -0700

Editor’s Note: This profile is one in a series that highlights Arizona State University’s 2008 and 2009 Regents’ Professors. The Regents’ Professor honor is the most prestigious faculty award at the university. Click here to view the complete list of awardees.

ASU’s Bruce Rittmann is living large and small at the same time.

He’s tackling some of the world’s biggest and most critical technological challenges with some of the tiniest tools.

Rittman directs the Center for Environmental Biotechnology in ASU’s Biodesign Institute and is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

His biotechnology endeavors focus on microorganisms. These bacteria, algae, archaea and protozoa are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but have a huge impact on the ecology of the Earth and health of its inhabitants.

He and his research partners are using microorganisms to develop ways of providing the world more abundant and clean energy, ensuring the quality of water resources and improving human health.

Progress in the laboratory, along with knowledge of advances in biotechnology that Rittmann brings to the classroom, earned him a Regents’ Professor title earlier this year. It’s the highest honor bestowed on faculty at Arizona’s state universities.

Groundbreaking advances

Since coming to ASU five years ago, after more than a decade at Northwestern University, Rittmann has cemented his standing as a pioneer in work that combines engineering with chemistry and microbiology.

His textbook on environmental biotechnology, co-written with Perry McCarty, a Stanford University emeritus professor, is used in universities throughout the world.

Rittmann’s research results have had demonstrable widespread impact, says Peter Fox, an environmental engineering professor at ASU.

“Bruce’s work on the kinetics and design of biofilm reactors is groundbreaking,” he says. “It’s the basis for hundreds of design models used for practical design and fundamental research. His use of molecular biology for the analysis of biological reactors has become common practice today.“

Neal Woodbury, the deputy director of the Biodesign Institute, calls Rittmann “astounding for his ability to integrate the concepts of microbial ecology, fuel cell technology, water remediation and alternative energy together into a coherent package.”

Rittmann is extraordinary for more the “amazing range” of his expertise, says Paul Westerhoff, the interim director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

“Bruce is envisioning large-scale, long-range solutions that have the potential to greatly improve our environment,” Westerhoff says. “He is defining new frontiers in environmental biotechnology, and he is making this possible through his skill in collaborating with colleagues and mentoring students who are working in diverse areas of engineering and science. This productive interaction is Bruce’s signature trait. He motivates people to learn and contribute.”

In 2004, Rittmann was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a recipient of the Clarke Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Water Science and Technology, a winner of the prestigious Huber Research Prize and the Freese Award from American Society of Civil Engineers, and among some of the world’s most highly cited researchers in science and engineering journals.

Living in a microbial world

Those achievements stem largely from the depth and diversity of the work he describes simply as “managing microorganisms to provide service” to society.

He’s talking about an especially broad range of services.

Manipulating things at the microbial level is enabling development of renewable bioenergy resources that cause much less pollution than conventional fossil fuels.

For example, microbial fuel cells have the potential to provide clean energy by directly producing electricity or hydrogen from organic matter in waste streams.

Rittmann also is improving methods for removing an array of contaminants from water.

Such promising advances achieved by Rittmann and dozens of other engineers, chemists and biologists at ASU are attracting support from numerous public and private sources.

The reach extends into the medical realm. Rittmann and colleagues are partners with the Mayo Clinic in exploring links between the “microbial populations” in the human body and the risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, among other diseases and maladies.

Facing the avalanche

When he earned his doctorate in environmental engineering from Stanford University three decades ago, the areas in which Rittmann specializes were only just emerging from their infancy. Today, he says, these fields are exploding – giving engineers a sense of exhilaration but also intensifying their challenges.

“With all the new things arising so rapidly from science and engineering, our students need to learn all the old, fundamental things but they also need to know about the avalanche of new knowledge.”

On top of that, scientists and engineers who want to succeed in today’s working environment “need to be good communicators, writers and speakers, learn to work in teams and know about business,” Rittman says. “It’s a tumultuous time for us.”