SuperDARN

Researchers at the Virginia Tech SuperDARN laboratory have been working on adding four new radars to the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN).

Reaching for the Stars

With funding from NASA, Scott Bailey’s team recently launched a sensor package on a rocket, as part of an effort to measure the amount of nitric oxide in the upper atmosphere.

Tapping Multi-Core

ECE professor Binoy Ravindran is leading a team of dedicated students to confront some of the unique challenges of multi-core computing: managing time constraints of dynamic time-critical applications on multi-core hardware, and automatically modifying existing time-critical code for use on the new hardware.

When Hardware and Software Hit Deep Water

Researchers in the Autonomous Systems and Controls Laboratory (ASCL) are developing and testing a number of new surface and underwater vehicle projects, including a sensing and autonomy package that can make any boat autonomous, a self-mooring autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), and an autonomous drifter.

Reverse Engineering a Network to Fight Breast Cancer

Armed with computer algorithms and data-mining techniques, Jason Xuan is diving into massive amounts of protein and gene data to fight breast cancer.

Apping Disasters

Jules White and his students are working on an app for smartphones that will enable “civilian scientists” to use their phones to help during emergencies.

Nanogrids for Sustainable Buildings

Engineers are seeking ways to make renewable energy systems more affordable and to integrate them with existing ac power grids. Researchers from the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) are tackling the issue from what they call a “nanogrid” perspective.

Fred Lee Elected to National Academy of Engineering

University Distinguished Professor Fred Lee has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his contributions “to high-frequency power conversion and systems integration technologies, education, industry alliances, and technology transfer.”

Wireless

• Spectrum sensing algorithms for cognitive radio
• Cognitive radios that perform well while learning
• Distributed computing in a wireless environment

Power & Energy

• Virginia Tech officially launches Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse Web portal
• Making solar energy affordable, efficient

Power Electronics

• 3-phase ac-dc converter tolerates high-temp environments
• Modeling EMI behavior for aerospace
• New high-frequency core loss measurement

Microelectronics

• Breath analysis with MEMS
• Cooling ICs with microchannels

Computer Engineering

• Swarm intelligence to validate designs
• Letting computers dream
• Wires on demand
• Making chips smaller and faster
• Testing and diagnosis of embedded memory

Photonics

• Large-area CO₂ detection network
• Fully-distributed sensing platform
• Advancing the quest for clean coal

Security

• Fingerprint images
• Evaluating cryptographic performance
• Magnifying processing flaws to make on-chip fingerprints
• Antennas inside