Congratulations to SCE Ph.D. students Feichen Shen, Sashi Saripalle and Kaustubh Dhondge. They were all selected for prestigious UMKC School of Graduate Studies (SGS) research grants. This makes four SCE students receiving SGS funding as we announced MD. Nahid Hossain’s research award earlier this month.
Tag Archives: research
SCE Professors John Kevern and Jerry Richardson Funded for New Research Project
Dr. John Kevern, SCE Assistant Professor and Dr. Jerry Richardson, SCE Associate Professor, both in the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department, recently had a new research project funded. Their proposal on the hydraulic design of permeable interlocking concrete pavers will be funded by the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (ICPI).
KC 2033: Dr. Vijay Kumar to Speak on Traffic of the Future
Will traffic lights exist? Will cars still have human drivers? These are some of the questions that Dr. Vijay Kumar will be addressing at the Centurion Monthly Task Force Meeting on Oct. 8. According to Dr. Kumar, “The idea of a driverless car is very exciting and such cars may come in about 15 to 20 years. More interesting is to provide a driverless option while keeping intact the fun of driving. Our love of cars does not want to lose the fun of driving. One of the main objectives is to improve traffic flow inside the city and do away with traffic lights to prepare the platform for driverless cars.” One of his current research projects uses sensors to automate traffic at intersections.
Dr. Kumar, Professor in the Computer Science Electrical Engineering Department at UMKC, proposed a new approach to sensor technology at an Air Force workshop in St. Louis. While at the workshop, the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, N.Y. took great interest and funded Dr. Kumar’s research project. Since then, he and his graduate assistant, Amol Khedkar, have explored the deployment of this technology. Their research is based around what he refers to as the “Self-Synchronization of Mobile Objects.” Kumar’s technology would communicate with surrounding vehicles and instruct the vehicles when to stop and when to go, without the interference of human drivers. For this technology to be effective, all the cars on the road must be equipped with this system. Kumar also suggests integration of an override system so that it can be switched off. Further advancement of the technology could begin regulating the speed of vehicles on the road, avoiding collision and eliminating wait time. Dr. Kumar and Khedkar’s research was recently featured in the U-News article, “Say ‘goodbye’ to traffic lights with driverless cars.”
The Centurions October Task Force meeting will focus on what Kansas City will look like in 20 years. The meeting will cover several different areas, including economic, demographic, environment and architecture planning, biotechnology, and Dr. Kumar’s presentation on driverless cars. The task force will explore critical measures and initiatives needed to continue growth and development in Kansas City.
Photo Courtesy Visionstyler Press – Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike License.
Damage Mapping on the Go
An interdisciplinary group of researchers, Dr. ZhiQiang Chen (Civil Engineering), Dr. Yugyung Lee (Computer Science), and their graduate students, Jianfei (Max) Chen (Electrical Engineering) and Feichen Shen (Computer Science), at the UMKC School of Computing and Engineering have developed a new approach for reporting damaged infrastructure: a smartphone-based application geared towards real-time damage quantification and collaborative decision making. According to the ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, the GPA for the infrastructure’s condition and performance is currently rated at a D+. In addition, the monetary investment needed to repair the infrastructure to maintain a functional state (that is, to get a grade of B) is $3.6 trillion by the year 2020. Such a tremendous investment demands a critical need – innovative and rapid technologies for civil infrastructure condition assessment. Different from a Google Street View application, the app seamlessly integrates mobile imaging, interactive analytics, and cloud computing, all processed in the real time.
EyeVerify Winner of 2013 Silicon Prairie Awards
UMKC’s EyeVerify, a Kansas City startup developing biometric identification devices for mobile phones, was recently selected as a winner of two 2013 Silicon Prairie Awards. Out of the hundreds of nominees, only 12 received awards at the Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, IA. EyeVerify received the Startup of the Year award, and Riddhiman Das, software developer for EyeVerify, received the Technologist of the Year award.
Ryan Holmes To Attend NSF’s NEES-REU Summer Program
Ryan Holmes, a SCE civil engineering student, was recently awarded an opportunity to attend the 2013 NSF’s NEES-REU Summer Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. This summer research program is designed for upper division undergraduate students interested in Earthquake Engineering. Ryan will spend 10 weeks at Reno and work on one of the NEES projects. The focus of his study will be on shake table modeling and seismic risk mitigation. As a part of the program, he will have the opportunity to attend a “Young Researchers’ Symposium” and the NEES Annual Meeting. Ryan Holmes has been working with Dr. ZhiQiang Chen in several research projects and has coauthored two technical papers. In the picture, Ryan Holmes (front) was preparing a unique dynamic fluid-soil-structure testing with Dr. Chen’s graduate student, Rahul Tripathi.
According to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) webpage, NSF “created the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) to give researchers the tools to learn how earthquakes and tsunami impact the buildings, bridges, utility systems and other critical components of today’s society. NEES is a network of 15 large-scale, experimental sites that feature such advanced tools as shake tables, centrifuges that simulate earthquake effects, unique laboratories, a tsunami wave basin and field-testing equipment. All are linked to a centralized data pool and earthquake simulation software, bridged together by the high-speed Internet2. The new NEESgrid system, a communications web that uses collaborative tools and tele-presence technologies, allows off-site researchers to interact in real time with any of the networked sites. With these tools, engineers and students from all parts of the country can collaborate on multi-site experiments using simulators that generate earthquake effects strong enough to bring down full-sized buildings.”
Four SCE professors receive 2011 UM Research Board Awards
Four SCE professors have received 2011 University of Missouri Research Board (UMRB) Awards. These awards are competitive and their goal is to provide leverage toward external funding. We congratulate:
- Drs. Reza Derakhshani and Gregory King (Co-PIs) for project title Biomechanical and Neurological Correlates of Balance Impairment
- Dr. Amber Stern for project title Aging Bone: Age Effects of Osteocyte Sensing of Skeletal Loading
- Dr. Ganesh Thiagarajan for project title Macro and Micro Finite Element Analysis of Mouse Ulna and Radius
Reza Derakhshani’s Research Featured!
Assistant professor Reza Derakhshani’s research was featured in UM’s Research and Economic Development Annual Report, providing UM System readers an example of the exciting research being conducted by UMKC faculty. SCE is proud to have one of our faculty represent our campus. This same story has also been chosen for a publication UM System Vice President Mike Nichols is taking to a United Kingdom BioTrinity 2011 conference this April.