science and technology

Georgia Tech Ph.D. Student, GEM Fellows Alum Receives Role Model Award from SHPE

dgivens8 — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:31:39 +0000

Georgia Tech Ph.D. Student, GEM Fellows Alum Receives Role Model Award from SHPE dgivens8 Fri, 03/22/2024 - 11:31

Carolina Colón, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and a member of GTRI’s GEM Fellowship cohort, has been honored with the "Role Model Award – Graduate" by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). This award is part of SHPE's Technical Achievement and Recognition (STAR) Awards and will be presented at the SHPE National Convention taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah, from Nov. 1-5.

Carolina Colón

Carolina is currently working toward her Ph.D. in Bioengineering, focusing on T-cell therapies, at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. She earned her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology in 2022 and holds an A.A. in Engineering from Valencia College, awarded in 2019.

Originally from Puerto Rico, she moved to Florida for her last year of high school.

Research at GTRI, Georgia Tech

Carolina's research work aims to combine aerospace engineering and bioengineering to develop devices that enable the mass production of cell therapies to lower their cost and make them more accessible.

GEM Fellowship

Colón was a participant in GTRI’s GEM Fellowship program in 2022. The national GEM Consortium provides funding for graduate education through corporate sponsorships and a partnership with university partners, such as Georgia Tech.

The National GEM Consortium is a network of leading corporations, government laboratories, elite universities, and elite research institutions that empowers qualified students from underrepresented communities to pursue a graduate degree in a STEM field. GEM’s mission is to garner a talent pool of African American, Hispanic American, and Native American advanced degree-seekers in STEM fields.

Every year, GEM identifies and recruits close to 2,000 students and working professionals from underrepresented groups to participate in its program, which consists of three graduate fellowship tracks: Master of Science in Engineering, Ph.D. in Science, and Ph.D. in Engineering.

GEM also provides financial support to aspiring graduate students from underrepresented groups, allowing them to pursue their dreams without worrying about money.

Students selected into the GEM Fellowship program must complete a corporate internship during the summer and attend graduate school during the fall and spring semesters. In exchange, students are provided funding for graduate school through an agreement with their home institutions.

In the GEM Fellowship program, one of her advisors was GTRI Principal Research Engineer Jud Ready of the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL).

Ready said that Carolina “increased teamwork and morale while creatively expanding knowledge of her lab mates’ different cultural backgrounds.”

Said Carolina of her GEM experience: "The experience I gained at GTRI will definitely last me a lifetime, and it’s something that has changed my life immensely. Thanks to all at EOSL and GEM."

Other Research Programs

Carolina’s research and professional trajectory has also been aided by her participation in multiple Georgia Tech summer research programs, including the Cell Therapy Manufacturing (CMaT), FOCUS, and SURE programs. Georgia Tech’s FOCUS program is one of the nation’s premier graduate recruitment programs designed to attract highly skilled students who have historically been underrepresented in higher education. The Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering/Sciences (SURE) program is a 10-week summer research program designed to attract qualified under-represented minority and women students into graduate school in the fields of engineering and science.

Woodruff School Honors

Most recently, as a new graduate student at Georgia Tech, she has been selected as the Vice President of the Woodruff School Graduate Women (WSGW) group and has already put into motion her ideas regarding Hispanic heritage, GT PRIDE, community college information sessions, etc.

The School of Mechanical Engineering has recognized her Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. She is an active volunteer with student recruitment panels and represented the school at the Women of Technology Gala. The school also awarded her the Inaugural Women of Woodruff “Rising Star” award for her efforts.

To cap it off, the Woodruff School also awarded Carolina the inaugural Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship (IRF). This honor recognized Carolina's vision of intertwining the fields of aerospace and bioengineering to create enhanced devices and enable cell therapies in the space environment for astronauts in long-term space missions.

Nada es imposible si lo intentas. (Nothing is impossible if you try.)
-- Carolina Colón

Beyond Academia

In addition to her studies, Carolina has worked with Marriott Hotels for about ten years. When she is not in the lab, Carolina enjoys activities such as watching anime, learning languages, playing video games, and swimming.

About the Award and SHPE

SHPE is the largest association in the U.S. aimed at supporting Hispanics in STEM fields. The organization’s STAR Awards are annual honors given to individuals, companies, and government agencies that have demonstrated commitment and measurable impact in advancing Hispanics in STEM. The awards are a key feature of the annual SHPE National Convention.

Carolina has been a member of SHPE for three years. A key example of her contribution to SHPE is that, in 2022, she was invited to represent Georgia Tech College of Engineering at the SHPE national conference in North Carolina, and is reprising the same role this year as well.

Leading up to last year’s event, she helped students with graduate school applications, resumes, practice interviews, and pointers on how to land internships. At the event, she talked to many students and told/encouraged them to apply to the many programs that she has participated in, such as Georgia Tech’s FOCUS and SURE programs.

The award received by Carolina Colón reflects GTRI’s and Georgia Tech’s ongoing commitment to creating a diverse academic environment and advancing excellence in STEM fields.

Carolina Colón’s recent accolade serves as a testament to her dedication and contribution to the field of STEM. It also highlights the quality of research and academics within GTRI and Georgia Tech.

We are proud to celebrate her achievements.

Ready said about Carolina: “It seems apparent already that she is destined to be one of those ‘special’ students that go on to make an impact throughout their career in numerous areas.”

We agree—and expect to note many more achievements in the future.

Writer: Christopher Weems
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia

Photos: Candler Hobbs
Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,900 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $940 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

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Fri, 10/27/2023 - 12:00

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Source updated

Fri, 03/22/2024 - 11:30

GTRI’s Stefan Abi-Karam Receives Esteemed FPL Community Award

dgivens8 — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 14:56:41 +0000

GTRI’s Stefan Abi-Karam Receives Esteemed FPL Community Award dgivens8 Fri, 03/22/2024 - 10:56

Stefan Abi-Karam, a member of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and a Ph.D student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, has been honored with the prestigious FPL Community Award at the 33rd International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL 2023) in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Abi-Karam, a Research Engineer I in GTRI's Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) Laboratory, was recognized for his paper titled "GNNBuilder: An Automated Framework for Generic Graph Neural Network Accelerator Generation, Simulation, and Optimization." The paper explores the intersection of hardware acceleration and applied deep learning, and delves into areas such as electronic design automation (EDA), FPGA architecture, and VLSI algorithms.

The FPL Community Award recognizes significant research contributions within the field-programmable logic community. It is awarded based on the impact and potential long-term benefits of open-source research, as assessed by peer reviewers during the conference.

Said Stefan, "I am really happy that there is community recognition for open-source academic hardware research, as this is still not the norm, or the open-source aspect is not seen as valuable in many academic research projects."

Abi-Karam's work, conducted in collaboration with Prof. Cong Hao of Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), stands out for its focus on the pragmatic aspects of engineering, automation, and co-design of high-level-synthesis-based hardware accelerators for computing graph neural networks. Stefan also received his bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech.

Stefan’s research has potential applications in various fields, including high-energy physics, where the deployment of graph neural networks in hardware.

Abi-Karam's dedication to his research and his success in blending his Ph.D. studies with his work at GTRI exemplify GTRI’s Mission's aims of Educating Future Technology Leaders and being a “People-First” environment.

This award not only recognizes Abi-Karam's individual excellence but also underscores GTRI’s and Georgia Tech's role as leaders in the field of cybersecurity and electrical and computer engineering research.

"The award itself was very unexpected since this was my first time at the FPL conference!" said Stefan excitedly and humbly. "It was also the first time I got to meet and talk to many of the other professors and students for the first time who also work in my research area as well as other areas that overlap with my work at GTRI."

Congratulations, Stefan!

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Summary sentence

Stefan Abi-Karam, a member of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and a Ph.D. student was recently honored with the prestigious FPL Community Award for his significant research contributions within the field-programmable logic community.

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Mon, 11/27/2023 - 12:00

michelle.gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu

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Michelle.Gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu

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Source updated

Fri, 03/22/2024 - 09:58

Digital Inspection Portal Uses AI and Machine Vision to Examine Moving Trains

admin — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 13:50:41 +0000

Digital Inspection Portal Uses AI and Machine Vision to Examine Moving Trains admin Fri, 01/26/2024 - 08:50

Collaboration between Norfolk Southern Corporation and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has led to the development of digital train inspection portals that use advanced machine vision and artificial intelligence to examine trains moving at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour to identify mechanical defects that may exist.

Machine vision technology in the portals produces images of key components located on the front and back, top, bottom, and sides of train cars, providing a 360-degree view of the complete train. Images produced by the portal are analyzed within minutes of a train’s passage, allowing any issues identified to be reported immediately.

Two train portals are currently in operation on adjacent tracks in Leetonia, Ohio, and the company plans to have as many as a dozen in service by the end of 2024. Among them will be a train portal already under construction near Jackson, Georgia, which is located south of Atlanta.

“Norfolk Southern is deploying Digital Train Inspection Portals to enhance rail safety across the company’s 22-state network,” said Mabby Amouie, chief data scientist for the company. “The portals feature cutting-edge machine vision inspection technology developed in partnership with GTRI, which engineered the hardware, and Norfolk Southern’s Data Science/Artificial Intelligence and Mechanical teams, which built the brains behind the program.”

The machine vision portion uses 38 high-resolution cameras consisting of a mix of area and line scan cameras to photograph critical components of each rail car moving through the portals. Powerful lights comparable to those used in sports stadiums allow the cameras to take approximately a thousand photographs of each moving rail car.

“Being able to look at the train while it’s moving at 60 miles per hour provides visibility into defects that would be difficult to see otherwise,” said Gary McMurray, division chief of GTRI’s Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division. “You want to be able to look at a train while it’s in motion because that’s when components are stressed, and you can see other dynamic faults.”

To reduce the amount of data that must be analyzed, each camera is aimed at a specific area of the train and takes photographs only when components of interest are visible. “The high-speed cameras are strategically placed at angles to capture things that are difficult to detect with the human eye during stationary inspections,” said Amouie.

Sensors at each portal determine the speed of each train passing through and use that information to precisely control when the photographs are taken.

“Even with a train traveling 60 miles per hour, we are able to calculate in real time when to tell each camera to take a picture,” said Colin Usher, a GTRI senior research scientist who led development of the machine vision system. “Only images of critical components are taken and the other areas of the train that are inconsequential to identifying defects are not captured. That optimizes the image capture and saves space in the computer system.”

The images produced by the system are analyzed by artificial intelligence algorithms developed by Norfolk Southern. The algorithms were designed to provide a combination of high accuracy and very low rates of false positives. If defects are spotted, the AI systems reports them immediately.

“The computer transmits the information to Norfolk Southern’s Network Operations Center, where the data is reviewed by subject-matter experts to identify and address issues to proactively ensure the safety of rail operations,” Amouie said. “Critical defects are flagged for immediate handling.”

The machine vision system uses image compression techniques to reduce the size of the photographs processed by computer servers located in the portals. For a single train, the data analyzed can amount to as much as 500 gigabytes. Because the inspection needs to be done quickly, the image processing is done on-site.

The inspection portals must operate year-round in all kinds of weather conditions and in geographic locations that range from extreme heat to cold. The machine vision system therefore has to operate despite heavy vibration levels, temperature extremes, rain and snow – and to remain clean as trains pass over.

To protect the cameras, air blown over the camera lenses shields them, while air-conditioned enclosures prevent overheating of the equipment. The system operates in a tunnel structure that helps protect the equipment and control lighting, which must be consistent across the train being inspected.

The project, which began in 2021, involved approximately a dozen researchers in four GTRI laboratories. The research built on imaging work done earlier for a variety of applications, including the food processing industry, which needed to monitor poultry on moving processing lines.

“By partnering with GTRI, Norfolk Southern is tapping into the best in machine vision technology in any market,” Amouie said. “We chose GTRI to be a partner because they develop advanced technology solutions and large-scale system prototypes to address the most difficult problems in national security, economic development and the overall human condition.”

Writer: John Toon (john.toon@gtri.gatech.edu)
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia USA

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,900 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $940 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

Summary sentence

Norfolk Southern Corporation and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed digital train inspection portals that use advanced machine vision and artificial intelligence to identify mechanical defects that may exist on moving trains.

Summary

Collaboration between Norfolk Southern Corporation and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has led to the development of digital train inspection portals that use advanced machine vision and artificial intelligence to examine trains moving at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour to identify mechanical defects that may exist.

Dateline

Fri, 01/19/2024 - 12:00

michelle.gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu

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Michelle Gowdy

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Source updated

Fri, 01/26/2024 - 08:49

GTRI Works to Enhance EV Battery Reuse and Recycling in Georgia

admin — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:11:31 +0000

GTRI Works to Enhance EV Battery Reuse and Recycling in Georgia admin Fri, 06/09/2023 - 10:11

Amid the surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs), there is a greater need to properly recycle them. The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is working to optimize Georgia’s EV battery supply chain by developing cost- and energy-efficient methods to recover materials from spent batteries so that more of them can be reused – and pose fewer environmental risks.

Georgia is quickly emerging as a hub for the electronic transportation industry. According to data from the Georgia Department of Economic Development, since 2018, 35 EV-related projects have contributed $23 billion in investments in the state.

South Korea-based Hyundai Motor Group recently broke ground on its first fully dedicated EV manufacturing facility in Savannah’s Bryan County. The company has also teamed up with LG Energy Solution to invest $4.3 billion in building an EV battery cell manufacturing plant at the same location.

EV manufacturer and automotive technology company Rivian, which is based on Irvine, Calif., has announced a $5 billion investment in its second U.S. plant located east of Atlanta in Morgan and Walton Counties.

Hyundai’s new facility is expected to reach full production capacity at the end of 2025, with 30 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy anticipated to support the production of 300,000 EVs. Rivian, meanwhile, anticipates its Georgia plant will employ over 7,500 workers while producing up to 400,000 vehicles each year.

“This level of industry engagement in Georgia is unprecedented,” said Kevin Caravati, a GTRI principal research scientist, who is supporting this project. “The Hyundai plant, for example, could create tens of thousands of jobs in a very rural part of Georgia, which would be a step in the right direction for the entire state.”

The lithium-ion batteries that power EVs are seen as desirable over other battery technologies because of their high energy density, which allows electric cars to travel longer distances on a single charge. These types of batteries also have a low self-discharge rate, which means that the stored energy remains available for an extended period of time even when the vehicle is not in use.

However, these batteries can easily turn into fire hazards – especially at the end of their life cycle. Very few batteries ever end up being recycled and those that do get recycled are often mishandled.

“Currently, there are no recycling standards in place, which poses challenges for the entire supply chain,” said Milad Navaei, a GTRI senior research engineer, who is leading this project. “Our goal is to create circular economy for batteries in Georgia where we can reduce our dependence on raw materials that often come from overseas and can be very expensive.”

Lithium-ion batteries use metals including lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt that are mined in locations such as Africa’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chile and Argentina. During the production process, the metals are combined with other materials to form the two key components of a battery cell – the cathode and the anode. Inside a battery, the cathode, which has a negative charge, and anode, which has a positive charge, interact to generate electrons that power the electronic device. Most lithium-ion batteries are currently made in China.

Navaei noted that geopolitical sensitivities and lingering supply chain challenges in many of these regions makes GTRI’s work all the more crucial.

GTRI’s research consists of two parts: One, develop more advanced analytics capabilities for fleet management companies to monitor the health and performance of EV batteries, and two, optimize the recovery of raw materials from batteries at the end of their useful life.

“The battery is the most important part of an EV, and it’s critical to know the battery’s state of health (SoH), which is the ratio of the present capacity to the initial capacity,” said Navaei. “Our goal is to utilize technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor the SoH of these batteries and estimate the life cycle, which heavily depends on the usage and the type of battery for its safe and reliable implementation in the next life application.”

GTRI aims to integrate these technologies into companies’ existing inventory management systems to streamline process management and reporting.

For the second part of the research, GTRI is utilizing a statistical technique known as parametric modeling to aggregate data about known behaviors and characteristics of EV batteries to help companies make more informed decisions about properly depowering them and repurposing their raw materials with minimal environmental impact.

“Developing a robust system-modeling approach to support our energy research is a primary focus of ours,” said GTRI Principal Research Scientist Ilan Stern, who is also supporting the project. “Since our ultimate goal is to utilize domestic sources in our supply chain, really the only way to do that is by building out strong recycling models to account for the fact that these companies are working with finite materials and many of them are coming from conflict zones.”

GTRI is working with a number of industry partners on this project, including many companies that participated in Georgia Tech Battery Day earlier this year. At the event, over 230 energy researchers and industry participants convened to discuss emerging opportunities in energy storage research. Some of the companies represented at the event included Hyundai Kia, Delta Airlines, Cox Automotive and Panasonic.

Writer: Anna Akins
Photo Credit: iStock
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,900 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $800 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

Summary sentence

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is working to optimize Georgia’s EV battery supply chain by developing cost-and energy-efficient methods that pose fewer environmental risks.

Summary

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is working to optimize Georgia’s EV battery supply chain by developing cost- and energy-efficient methods to recover materials from spent batteries so that more of them can be reused – and pose fewer environmental risks.

Dateline

Wed, 06/07/2023 - 12:00

michelle.gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu

Contact

(Interim) Director of Communications

Michelle Gowdy

Michelle.Gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu

404-407-8060

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668019

Source updated

Fri, 06/09/2023 - 10:08