Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2010 - (Page 8)

Every day, in labs around the world, engineering students are asking a question: What if? What if we could make fuel from sunlight? What if we could use cells to repair joint injuries? What if we could build glass as strong as a diatom’s shell? Here, ﬁve graduate students explain the research that happens after asking “what if?”—and how their ﬁndings might beneﬁt us and our planet. NETWORKS ON THE FLY BY AVEEK PUROHIT For most of my high school years, I wanted to be a computer scientist, someone who wrote code on a desktop computer. But in my junior year of college, I was drawn to embedded systems—computer systems integrated into devices to perform speci c functions. For my engineering capstone project course, my team and I had to build a system that balanced a ball on a wooden beam. If you were to do this manually, you would prevent the ball from rolling o by simply tilting the beam in response to the ball’s position. We had to design a computer system that did the same thing: It had to constantly detect the ball’s position and change the beam’s angle with a motor. at was my rst experience programming on a microchip, and it was fascinating to see the e ect manifested in something real and physical. If a tilting beam was fascinating to me then, you can imagine how exciting I nd my current work. My group and I are building tiny helicopters, each weighing about an ounce, that carry a compass and motion sensors, can be equipped with a miniature camera or microphone, and can communicate wirelessly with each other and their base station. Our goal is to have a squadron of these cra —which we named SensorFly—collaboratively explore and sense indoor environments. My work on SensorFly has encompassed a range of tasks: making sure the sensors and radios work and communicate properly, implementing algorithms that enable them to autonomously hover and nd their location, and writing so ware that lets them form networks on the go. My research is now leading into interesting problems, such as how tiny, mobile, and inexpensive sensor nodes—which are individually incapable of carrying sophisticated technology like the big robots—can cooperate and nd their way in unknown environments. We’ve looked for answers in areas as diverse as insect behavior and radio wave propagation physics, underscoring the interdisciplinary nature of the eld. SensorFly’s potential applications are many, especially in disaster response or urban combat situations. They can negotiate walls and obstacles better than big robots, and tens of them could search in parallel, making rescue operations faster. Being autonomous, they reduce the risk re ghters or soldiers face when scouting dangerous buildings. It’s exciting to work on this next step in sensor networks not just because it extends our understanding of the science, but because it has the capacity to save lives. Aveek Purohit earned his B.S. in electrical engineering from the national institute of Technology in Bhopal, india, and his m.S. in electrical and computer engineering from carnegie mellon, where he is now a secondyear Ph.d. student. Aveek enjoys traveling, practicing karate, swimming, and playing tennis, ping-pong, and billiards. 8 imagine May/Jun 2010 vEcToRSTock/ SHUTTERSTock/ iSTock

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2010

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2010
Table of Contents
Big Questions
In My Own Words
If They Build It
Design That Matters
Wired to Win
A Student at SPAWAR
Even When the Ground Shakes
Biomimicry
An Engineer in Training
Engineering My Future
Home Away From Home
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Middle Ground
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Creative Minds Imagine
Sudoku
Knossos Game

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2010