Thursday, April 14, 2011

Rudee Outstanding Poster / Grand Prize / Research Expo

ECE graduate student Chirag Dipak Patel winner of the Rudee Outstanding Poster at Research Expo 2011
Congratulations to ECE graduate student Chirag Dipak Patel, who won top prize at Research Expo 2011.

Poster title and abstract are below. Check back tomorrow for more info on his research.

130. HIGH-POWER, LARGE-FORCE, AND TEMPERATURE-STABLE METAL CONTACT SWITCHES
Student(s): Chirag Dipak Patel
Professor(s): Gabriel Rebeiz

This poster presents a novel electrostatic RF MEMS metal contact switch based on a tethered cantilever topology. The use of tethers results in a design that has low sensitivity to stress gradients, biaxial stresses, and temperature. A switch with a footprint of 160x190 um^2 and based on a 8-u m thick gold cantilever with an Au/Ru contact is implemented on a high-resistivity silicon substrate and results in a total contact force of 0.8-1.2 mN at 80-90 V, a restoring force of 0.5 mN, a pull-in voltage of 61 V, an up-state capacitance of 24 fF, and an actuation time of 6.4 u s. The device achieves a switch resistance of 2.4 +/-1.4 to 1.8+/- 0.6 ohms at 90-100 V in open laboratory environments (unpackaged). This design has the potential serve as a low-cost and high-reliability replacement for conventional electromagnetic relays in application areas such as automated testing equipment, high performance switching networks, medical devices, satellite systems, and defense.

The top posters by department are here.

Research Expo 2011 Best Poster Winners (by Department)

Below are the winners of the top poster, by department at Research Expo 2011. Congrats! and stay tuned for the grand prize...the Rudee Outstanding Poster Award...

Bioengineering
#3 A Custom Integrated High Input Impedance Biopotential Amplifier for Non-Contact and Mobile Health (ECG/EEG) Monitoring
Yu Mike Chi (Professor Gert Cauwenberghs)

Computer Science and Engineering
# 79 Kremlin: Like Gprof, but for Parallelization
Donghwan Jeon, Saturnino Garcia (Professor Michael Taylor)

Electrical and Computer Engineering
#130 High-Power, Large-Force, and Temperature-Stable Metal Contact Switches
Chirag Dipak Patel (Professor Gabriel Rebeiz)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
# 157 Investigating the Use of Wing Sweep for Pitch Control of a Small Unmanned Air Vehicle
Kim Wright, Saam Ostovari, Anand Vaidya (Professor Thomas Bewley)

NanoEngineering
#223 Biological Applications of Catalytic Nanomotors
Daniel R Kagan (Professor Joseph Wang)

Structural Engineering
#242 Thermal Stress and Buckling Detection in Rail by Non-Destructive Ultrasonic Testing
Claudio Nucera (Professor Francesco Lanza de Scalea)

Treaded Robot at Research Expo

Nicholas Morozovsky and his robot at research expo.

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Prepping for mobile blogging today from Research Expo

...I'm going to be testing out mobile blogging today at Research Expo


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Research Expo is Today