The Department of Electrical Engineering, in conjunction with the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), the College of Engineering, and five other universities, has been awarded two multimillion dollar Multidisciplinary Research Initiative (MURI) awards.

Professor P.S. Krishnaprasad is working on one of the MURI projects - a three-year, $3 million Army Research Office award for the “Design and Control of Smart Structures.” The Maryland project, managed through ISR, will perform collaborative research in:

• Modeling, simulation and control of magnetoelastic materials and other related problems of control of deformable bodies using electromagnetic fields
• Computation and design tools for smart actuators and sensors.
• Study of fluid-structure interactions and design.
• Fabrication of arrays of micro-actuators.

Maryland researchers include Professors John Baras (EE), Stuart Antman (Mathematics), and Krishnaprasad. Project partners include researchers from both Harvard and Boston University.

The consortium will work actively with industry leaders in the design, development and application of smart materials.

Professor Shihab Shamma is leading the second project on “Advanced Acoustic Processors for Multiple DOD Applications,” funded by the Office of Naval Research.

A consortium of researchers from the University of Maryland, Boston University, University of Washington, University of California at Berkeley, and the Institute of Neuroinformatics of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology will conduct experimental and theoretical investigations of the auditory system and acoustic signal processing. This includes not only a fundamental understanding of the subject, but also inventing new algorithms to capture its functionality in software and hardware. Applications in DOD-related interests will be demonstrated as well.

In conunction with this project, the Maryland team will establish the “Center for Auditory and Acoustic Research,” under the auspices of the ISR.

University of Maryland faculty involved include Shamma, Krishnaprasad and Baras, plus Steve Marcus, professor of electrical engineering, Didier Depirieux, research associate for the Institute of Systems Research, John Benedetto, professor of zoology, Catherine Carr, associate professor of zoology, and Robert Dooling, professor of psychology.

Project team members plan to work closely with industry leaders in the design, development and application of acoustic processors.

Please watch future issues of EE Connections for features on these two projects.

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