Low-cost Ventilator

The procurement and maintenance cost of high‐end ventilators preclude their stockpiles sufficient for the mass emergency situations. Therefore, there is a significant demand for mechanical ventilators in such situations. Herein, a low‐cost, portable, yet high‐performance design for a volume‐controlled mechanical ventilator is proposed. Pneumatic artificial muscles, such as air cylinders, are used in the inverse

Soft Robotics

Pneumatic actuators require a source of pressure for operation. This pressure is often provided by bulky and pricey peripherals (compressors, valves, gas tanks, etc.). While working on a different project, through serendipity, I realized my approach could address the mentioned challenge associated with pneumatic actuators! We reduced the cost of the device from >$1000 to

Microactuators for Chemical Delivery

When heated, the long chains of some polymers become more mobile. This increase in mobility expands the void space between the chains. We can use this property to make a “molecular switch” or a “micro/nano actuator” out of these polymers. Now, if we infiltrate these polymers with some macromolecules of interest and magnetic nanoparticles, when

Fiber Actuators/Artificial Muscles

Also known as muscle-like actuators are devices/materials that can expand/shrink in length, bend, or rotate in response to an external stimulus such as heat, electric field, magnetic field, light, fluid pressure, redox reactions, etc. I have worked on the following types of artificial muscles at a system level and also device level. Thermal actuators: As the

Energy Storage

Capacitors exhibit remarkable power density while batteries have excellent energy density. Supercapacitors offer a good combination of energy and power density. I demonstrated two different supercapacitor designs from niobium nanowires. The first design is in the form of a yarn, suitable for wearable, flexible, and stretchable devices (Figure A) and the second design is a

Bio-photovoltaic

We receive peak power of 1-1.3 kW/m2 from the sun on a sunny day. It is very desirable to harvest this light, store it, and use it during low light conditions. There are many different designs for solar cells. In this project, we tried to adopt nature’s solution for harvesting light for solar cell application.

Power Line Communication

In-vehicle power line communication (PLC) holds great promises as an enabler of in-vehicle communication without increasing weight, volume, or cost of the wiring harnesses (Figure). I designed, built, and tested a power line communication interface circuit for vehicular digital communication and collaborated with another team member on measurement of channel characteristics (i.e. transfer function) of