Science is examining the brain’s neural activity for applications ranging from innovative therapies for brain-related injuries and disease to computational learning architectures for artificial intelligence and deep neural networks. ECE’s Meng Cui developed a new exploratory imaging tool, COMPACT, to do this.

The Center for Innovation in Control, Optimization and Networks (ICON) integrates diverse expertise to enhance research and education in autonomous and connected systems. The 2021 ICON Outstanding Students Research Symposium, held virtually on May 14, brought together 10 outstanding graduate students to share their most recent research in control, optimization, learning, autonomy, robotics and related disciplines. Presenters were nominated by ICON faculty based on their excellent research performance.

The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) has been awarded $5 million in funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through 2025. Its Network Coordination Office (NCO) is located at Purdue University and is directed by Purdue CE’s Julio Ramirez, Karl H. Kettelhut Professor in Civil Engineering.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Technology Transfer Program (STTR) has awarded $1M for Phase II research to continue the development of advanced Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S) battery technology. Li-S batteries may succeed lithium-ion batteries because of their higher energy density and reduced cost. The batteries can also enable efficient electric transportation such as in unmanned aircrafts, electric buses and other transportation vehicles.

ECE’s Saurabh Bagchi is working toward a world where autonomous systems are trustworthy and we can quantify and rigorously prove the level of trust in each such system.

ME’s Xiulin Ruan and his students have created the whitest paint on record, and earned a Guinness World Records^TM title.

Purdue Engineering has named 12 faculty members as Entrepreneurial Ambassadors, a new offshoot program of the University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellowship initiative.

A team of Purdue students, competing as Codex Laboratories LLC - a company founded at Purdue in 2019 - placed fourth in a competition organized by Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division (NSWC-CR) called the NSWC Crane AISUM Prize Challenge seeking AI algorithms to combine with robotic autonomous systems for small unit maneuver elements.

MSE's Rahim Rahimi, an assistant professor in the School of Materials Engineering, has developed a flexible polymer composite microneedle array that can overcome the physicochemical bacterial biofilm present in chronic, nonhealing wounds and deliver both oxygen and bactericidal agents simultaneously.