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  • FBG-based Temperature Sensors
  • Displacement Sensors
  • Displacement Sensors for Orthopedic research
  • Smart Vibration Platform
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Research Topics

Here are our expanded research activities, in outline form:

1. Sensor Development

1. Sensors for structural health monitoring
1. Smart aggregate (Piezoceramic based)
2. Temperature sensor (Fiber Bragg Grating Based)
       
3. Long gauge strain sensor with temperature correction (Fiber Bragg Grating Based)
4. Dispacement Sensors
       
2. Sensors for biomedical research
   1. Displacement sensor suitable for orthopedic research
   
   2. In vivo blood pressure transducer
3. Sensors for oil exploration
1. Pressure, force, and temperature sensors that can survive harsh environment
4. General purpose sensors based on active materials

2. Structural Controls: passive, semi-active and active
1. Control system design for structural control
   • Active vibration control of an I-beam using piezoceramic sensor and actuators - classical control methods
        
• Active vibration control of a truss structure using piezoceramic stack actuator - classical control method
   
• Active vibration control of a model
  building using piezoceramic sensor and actuators - LQR control
     
• Vibration reduction of a flexible beam during slew operations - input shaping and classical control
   
2. Devices design for structural controls
3. Piezoceramic Materials
1. Precision control of piezoceramic actuators with hysteresis compensation
      
2. Develop piezoceramic based sensors
1. For structural health monitoring – Smart Aggregate
2. For oil exploration
4. Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs)
1. Precision control of SMAs with hysteresis compensation
   • Sliding-mode based control with a neural-network hysteresis compensator

2. Innovative aerospace devices with SMA actuators
• A Proof-of-Concept Active Jet Engine Intake using Shape Memory Alloy Actuators
          
3. Innovative SMA enabled devices for oil exploration
4. SMA Damping devices
5. Modeling of structures with SMAs
6. Actuation of SMA using Modulation Techniques
   • Using Pulse Width Pulse Frequency (PWPF) Modulation

• Using Pulse Width (PW) Modulation
7. Control of an SMA actuator without using a position sensor
5. Magneto-Rheological Fluids
1. Vibration damping of stay cables using MR dampers
2. A thin-film magnetorheological fluid damper/lock

6. Fiber-Optical Sensors
1. Fiber Bragg grating based sensors
2. Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer (EFBI) based sensors
1. Pressure transducers
7. Control Theories, Intelligent Controls, and their Applications
1. Sliding-mode based nonlinear controls
   • A smooth sliding-mode based robust controller
2. Hysteresis modeling and compensation
3. Fuzzy logic based controls

4. Neural network based controls
5. Fault Identification and Fault Tolerant Control
8. Structural Health Monitoring
1. Active-sensing based structural heath monitoring
2. Structural health monitoring using fiber optical sensors
9. Teaching Equipment or Demonstration Development
1. Develop a Smart Vibration Platform Experiment
               
2. Develop a Smart Flexible Beam Experiment
3. Develop a MR Fluid Demonstration
             
4. Develop a Shape Memory Alloy Demonstration
            
5. Vibration Control of Vortex-induced Vibration using Shape Memory Alloy Springs
         

Many papers resulting from our research have been published.