Faculty and students in SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering will use an $849,839 grant from the National Science Foundation to improve unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) communications, with the potential to enable the next wave of drone applications ranging from delivery of consumer goods to supporting autonomous combat and search and rescue efforts.
The award to Joseph Camp and Dinesh Rajan in the Electrical Engineering Department begins funding their work October 1, 2018, and will extend through September 30, 2021. The objective is to build infrastructure for Multi-Dimensional Drone Communications Infrastructure (MuDDI) to address research issues related to three-dimensional connectivity, distributed antennas across a drone swarm and 3-D swarm formations that optimize the transmission to intended receivers.
The SMU team will rent and equip indoor space relatively close to campus for repeatable experimentation. “This will allow us to run our experiments in a controlled environment with the ability to precisely measure the wireless transmission characteristics,” Camp said.
The drone research could have far-reaching applications for the future of UAV communications, including increasing Internet connectivity during natural disasters as well as commercial and military applications, all of which require coordination of multiple entities across various altitudes, from in-flight to ground-based stations. Potential applications also include deploying WiFi in underserved, low-income neighborhoods.
Read more at SMU Research.
Tag: Engineering
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Geeking out at engineering camp
Parker Holloway ’17 created the curriculum and spent the summer sparking engineering interest through hands-on challenges during weekly camps for middle and high school students held in the Deason Innovation Gym at SMU. Reporter Bill Zeeble’s story on the camp aired on KERA Radio on July 20, 2017.
Throughout the summer, high school and junior high students have been gathering at Southern Methodist University for week-long engineering camps. High schoolers tackled a tough challenge. Devise – then build – one of several electronic items like an alarm clock or home burglary system. Only make it smaller, cheaper and faster than what’s out there. And finish it in just days.
Everyone’s deadline-busy in SMU’s maker-space – the Deason Innovation Gym. With the clock ticking, Conrad High School 17 year-old Chan Hnin and his three team mates are building their own, unusual, alarm clock.
“The battery life is way longer and it’s also louder than your phone,” Chan says. “Some people are sleepy headed, you know?”
Chan’s on one of four teams of high school boys here to learn real engineering through hands-on experience. London Morris, from Lancaster High School, explains why their clock’s an improvement.
Read more at SMU News.
A consortium of institutions led by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas will partner with the U.S. Census Bureau to establish the Dallas-Fort Worth Federal Statistical Research Data Center.
The DFW center is the result of an extensive grant application process involving contributions from each consortium member and a review by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Census Bureau. One of several planned Federal Statistical Research Data Center locations across the country, the center will be housed at the Dallas Fed and will provide approved researchers with secure access to restricted micro-level data.
The center will advance scientific knowledge, improve data quality and inform policy in fields spanning the social, behavioral and economic sciences and the health professions, and extending to urban planning, and engineering. The cutting-edge research opportunities afforded by the center will raise the profile of participating institutions and assist in attracting and retaining top research talent to the region.
Read more at SMU Research.
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One-day Challenge, Infinite Impact
More than 1,300 donors supported SMU during the Mustangs Give Back challenge March 24, providing funding for campuswide projects and other important areas that have a big impact on today’s students.
The one-day giving opportunity raised $186,119 for a wide range of student-focused programs and initiatives, including engineering research, new courses in emerging fields, tutoring and scholarships.
A special Mustangs Give Back website provided profiles of 30 featured projects and their funding goals. By the end of the challenge, each highlighted project had received contributions, and 21 projects had exceeded their goals.
“When Mustangs come together to support students and faculty, there is no limit to their potential to change the world,” says Marianne B. Piepenburg ’81, SMU’s assistant vice president for alumni and constituent giving and executive director of alumni relations.
Thanks to the generosity of the University community, the SMU student chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has cleared another hurdle toward its goal to help the village of Llohila Grande, Bolivia, obtain a reliable source of clean water.
The EWB’s “Water the World: SMU to Bolivia” raised $6,658, more than three times its original funding request. Morgan Monzingo ’16 and Andrew Timmins ’16, senior engineering majors in the Lyle School of Engineering, led the “Water the World” effort. Andrew Quicksall, J. Lindsay Embrey Trustee Assistant Professor in the Lyle School, serves as faculty advisor.
“This donation puts us one step closer to providing the community of 250 residents with water that they can drink with confidence and won’t make them sick,” says project participant Rachael Rodgers ’18, a sophomore civil engineering major from Granbury, Texas.
In August 2015, Rodgers traveled to Bolivia for an initial assessment during which SMU students met with townspeople and ran field tests to collect water quality data.
Mustangs Give Back donations will not only help improve the quality of life for the people we met in Bolivia, but they also provide students like me with the opportunity to use our education to improve our local and global communities. I have always been interested in water resources, and I also have a love for the Spanish language and culture. Being able to combine these two passions into one project is an exciting privilege.” – Rachael Rodgers ’18
Residents of the South American village currently rely on shallow wells containing high levels of salt, manganese and arsenic. SMU students have designed three solutions, ranging in cost and complexity, to solve the problem effectively.
Rodgers, along with Richie Burns ’18, Michael Keya ’17, Mauricio Sifontes ’19 and Erin Walsh ’18, has planned a return trip to Bolivia in August to install a deep well as part of the project implementation.
“Mustangs Give Back donations will not only help improve the quality of life for the people we met in Bolivia, but they also provide students like me with the opportunity to use our education to improve our local and global communities,” Rodgers says. “I have always been interested in water resources, and I also have a love for the Spanish language and culture. Being able to combine these two passions into one project is an exciting privilege.”