SDIP Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

Dr. Masudul Imtiaz's research includes developing state-of-the-art ultra-low power electrical, mechanical, and electrochemical wearable sensor systems for real-time, non-invasive, accurate, and objective monitoring of the wearer's health. Figure 1 illustrates the multisensory sensor platform of PD's prior research employed for monitoring the wearer's food intake and cigarette smoking activities from the eye level, hand, and chest locations, respectively. PD's prior research found it necessary to design multisensory wearables in a miniature platform customized for individual usage while targeting the highest performance, feasibility, and user comfort. Another major research need is to transfer the intelligence to the sensor level and allow real-time processing at the edge within a limited power budget. REU students will receive an immersive experience in scientific investigations of this wearable sensing of health through the design of AI prototypes. Students will also work closely with the CAPDM facility and AI Vision lab to validate novel sensor systems and analyze the commercialization aspects. Ultra-low-power ARM processors featuring onboard wireless communication (BLE) will be used, and a custom PCB of the sensor system will be manufactured and tested through a human study. The evaluation metrics include sensor performance, field durability, data quality, and reliability. This research will support a) encouraging proactive healthcare, b) performing long-term monitoring of vulnerable patients and infants, and c) benefiting healthcare providers and employers in the education and industry.

Dr. Stephanie Schuckers is the director of CITeR, an NSF I/UCRC center having more than twenty affiliated organizations (e.g., Qualcomm, Northrop Grumman, Integrated Biometrics, FBI, DHS, and DoD, among others) whose goal is to ensure improved national security by meeting partners' research needs. Next-generation systems must meet additional security and privacy requirements to improve robustness to vulnerabilities associated with fake biometrics [42], [43]. These systems will require closely tied hardware/software solutions. An REU student researcher would participate in the development of smart sensor systems that support biometric recognition and identity (such as fingerprint, iris, or face recognition) and novel modalities (such as heart-based biometrics). Students will redesign and build flexible sensors from COTS components and update the firmware for biometric authentication. There is also a need for the trade-off between accuracy, computational cost, and memory footprint of smart biometric technologies such as wearable mID, fingerprint-enabled wearable IoT (skin patches, glucose monitor, fitness tracker), etc. The latter will require a matching model to be hosted on embedded processors of medical wearables, a research challenge a young researcher would like to handle. The evaluation metrics include the system’s robustness across subjects with varying demographics.

Dr. Xiaocun Lu's group provides opportunities for interdisciplinary research on biomechanics imaging and sensing for biomedical devices and applications [44]. In biological systems, mechanical properties play key roles in many natural processes, such as geometry control of cell growth, mass transportation through cell membranes, and mechanical properties of cytoskeleton. Biomechanics imaging has recently been in high demand as it provides facile analytical methods for mechanical sensing in biological systems. Students will work with a team of researchers with diverse backgrounds, from the molecular design of biomechanical sensors, polymer synthesis, materials characterization, and computer simulations to imaging techniques. The first part of the project focuses on the molecular design and synthesis of next-generation biomechanical sensors, and the other part aims to optimize the sensitivity of biomechanical sensors. Students will be involved in the molecular design of near-infrared mechanical sensors for enhanced detection depth and resolution using computer simulation tools to screen and evaluate the molecular mechanical sensitivity, followed by chemical synthesis and characterization of the designed molecular sensors. Students will learn various techniques in computer simulations and polymer synthesis to gain comprehensive research experience in the design principles and chemical synthesis of molecular biomechanical sensors. Students will optimize the mechanical sensitivity of biomechanical sensors, specifically focusing on enhancing the biocompatibility and penetration depth of near-infrared biomechanical sensors in aqueous conditions.

Dr. Silvana Andreescu, is conducting research to develop de novo designs of portable sensing technologies for monitoring emerging environmental contaminants and bioactive compounds in food and clinical samples. The work in Andreescu's lab, funded by NSF, USDA, and US Army contracts, involves the design, fabrication, and experimental characterization of sensor systems. There is an open research opportunity in her group toward the development of novel platforms for the detection of emerging environmental contaminants such as per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are used in many industries and are persistent in nature. To fabricate the sensors, REU students will graft polymers that have unique recognition properties and cavities that fit the size of PFAS compounds onto PCB boards and use these as sensing platforms to monitor these persistent contaminants in the environment. Other sensors are being developed in collaboration with the Center of Excellence (CoE) in Healthy Water Solutions for heavy metals, phosphates, and nitrates [45]–[50]. Working on this project, the student will experiment with how to modify electrochemical sensors with recognition molecules and use electrochemistry to calibrate and characterize sensors using PFAS as an example (Figure 2). They will learn about molecular recognition, sensor fabrication and integration, data analysis, and QC/QA criteria for implementation and deployment. Students will demonstrate the use of these sensors for the detection of contaminants in water samples collected from nearby Superfund sites and water from the chemical and mechanical polishing (CMP) of wafer surfaces.

Indoor air quality (in general) and airborne particles (in particular) are strongly correlated to human health. Traditional approaches to measuring real-time changes in concentration and diversity of airborne particles have relied on large, expensive instruments that are complicated to deploy. With advances in sensing technologies, a large array of low-cost sensors can now be deployed for large-scale monitoring in indoor and outdoor environments. These sensing technologies are, however, limited in their accuracy and depth of measurements. The research group, led by Dr. Suresh Dhaniyala, is developing new sensors [51] that combine physics and engineering advances for real-time measurement of the abundance of particles as small as 10 nm and for measurement of the diversity of biological particles in the air. The success of these technologies relies on the systematic analysis of sensor performance, meaningful representation of sensor responses, and development of new sensor modalities. This need will be addressed by REU students' research. They will be able to access the resources/facilities of CAARES (Dr. Dhaniyala is a co-director), which focuses on managing pollution and measuring contaminant concentrations in environmental media.

The emergence of externally powered prosthetic limb systems for individuals with upper-extremity or lower-extremity amputations has been enabled in part by the integration of a variety of sensor modalities to inform powered limb control strategies. Sensory measurements of limb-environment and amputee-limb interactions are fused with state measurements of the prosthetic limb to identify user-intent and command-appropriate control actions. In addition to instrumentation integrated directly into the prosthetic limb, current control architectures also leverage measurements from wearable sensors placed on the amputee user to enable direct/volitional control of limb behavior. Proper use of wearable sensor technology will further narrow the performance gap between the prosthesis and the limb it intends to replace. REU students will do a multisensory fusion investigation led by Dr. Kevin Fite to control powered prosthetic limb systems. Their combined effort will accelerate the identification of the sensory modalities most suitable for realizing a given prosthetic limb function and directly support the transition of powered prosthetic limbs from lab prototypes to field-deployable systems. Students will obtain research experience for developing an electronic architecture for characterizing the system's interaction mechanics and facilitating intelligent control of the active components to benefit the combined prosthetic limb [52], [53]; here, the project’s success will be evaluated based on the overall system integration.

Dr. Thomas Holsen will lead an REU project evaluating the use of the PFAS sensor in contaminated [54]–[58] groundwater samples taken from several DoD sites across the US. PFAS concentrations in the water will be determined following Draft EPA Method 1633 and compared to those measured by the PFAS sensors. The impact of contaminate and co-contaminant concentrations on sensor response will be evaluated. In addition, the use of the sensor output in the real-time control of a recently developed, enhanced contact plasma reactor for the treatment of PFAS-impacted water will be evaluated. Currently, the impact of process parameters on PFAS removal can only be determined long after laboratory analysis is available (often days after the experiment is over). Real-time control of reactor parameters (flow rate, bubbling rate, applied voltage) based on effluent concentrations provided by the sensor would significantly improve reactor efficiency and performance. Dr. Holsen also leads the Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program (GLFMSP), a $6.5M grant to Clarkson from the US EPA. Several REU students have also worked with Dr. Holsen's group in previous years, with outcomes shown in scholarly publications. This surveillance system will also be introduced to future REU students.