IEEE Galveston Bay Section

Call for IEEE Volunteers to help chaperon students for the upcoming (https://tryengineeringinstitute.ieee.org/engineering-camp/texas-engineering-camp-at-rice-university/)visit to (https://spacecenter.org/space-center-u/?gclid=CjwKCAjwv-GUBhAzEiwASUMm4gCp3_F78sctLQXxIoY-qlMWxi83UkYdyGBlCRKkGMpP4AzQ49-LLBoC6OgQAvD_BwE) on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm. Your responsibilities will include the following: - Supporting TESI Staff during NASA Visit. - Engaging in STEM conversations with students. - Volunteers are asked to volunteer for the entire time of the visit, lunch will be provided by IEEE. The number of IEEE volunteer slots is limited to a first volunteer, first-serve basis. So don't wait too long to volunteer. We will schedule a conference call a few days before the date to help answer any additional questions from registered volunteers. About IEEE TryEngineering Summer Institue At the TryEngineering Summer Institute (https://tryengineeringinstitute.ieee.org/), you’ll explore various engineering fields, such as electrical, civil, mechanical, and aerospace. Our STEM summer course allows you to meet working engineers and experience VIP tours of engineering companies and centers. Learn new skills and engage in hands-on projects that explore how engineers can solve real-world problems. The TryEngineering Summer Institute is a program from (https://www.ieee.org/), the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology. Our more than 417,000 members in 160 countries, including more than 120,000 student members, help us provide the trusted "voice" for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe via highly-cited publications, conferences, and technology standards, and professional and educational activities. Our curriculum is created specifically for this program by IEEE STEM summer specialists. Co-sponsored by: Houston Section Agenda: Wednesday, June 29, 2022 - 10:00 am - 12:00 pm: NASA Tour Begins - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch - 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: NASA Guest Speaker - 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Wrap up visit special tour. Bldg: NASA Space Center Houston, 1601 E NASA Pkwy, Houston, Texas, United States, 77058

The rapid development of smart material technology and hand held devices (for example VR controller, mobile devices) has created high demand for shape changing interfaces in order to provide users with more functions in less space and improved usability. However, the fundamental incompatibility between flexible displays and rigid actuator components has brought a huge barrier for commercialization of this technology. This seminar addresses a flexible and bendable vibrotactile actuator that can be easily applied to shape changing hand-held devices. One of the best-established technologies for flexible vibrotactile actuators is to use electroactive polymers (EAPs). There are two types of EAPs, ionic type and non-ionic type. In an ionic EAP, the movement of ions inside the polymer creates its actuation. Ionic EAPs allow relatively low input voltage, but they require high electric power (high electric current) for operation because high energy is necessary to maintain their deformed shape. Another problem is that their actuation force is not sufficiently strong to allow for clear perception. In contrast, non-ionic EAPs, for example, dielectric EAPs, have been researched with a keen interest for vibrotactile actuators owing to their fast response and high operational efficiency. However, non-ionic EAPs require a pre-stretching or multi- stacking process to be able to create large force enough to stimulate human mechanoreceptors. This strategy brought a new issue for low durability and/or a complex manufacturing process. This seminar addresses a robust and flexible vibrotactile actuator using an electro-active plasticized PVC to solve the problem. Co-sponsored by: IMEKO TC17 Technical Committee on Measurement and Control of Robotiucs. Speaker(s): Sang-Youn, Houston, Texas, United States, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/313673

Call for IEEE Volunteers to help chaperon students for the upcoming (https://tryengineeringinstitute.ieee.org/engineering-camp/texas-engineering-camp-at-rice-university/)visit to (https://spacecenter.org/space-center-u/?gclid=CjwKCAjwv-GUBhAzEiwASUMm4gCp3_F78sctLQXxIoY-qlMWxi83UkYdyGBlCRKkGMpP4AzQ49-LLBoC6OgQAvD_BwE) on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm. Your responsibilities will include the following: - Supporting TESI Staff during NASA Visit. - Engaging in STEM conversations with students. - Volunteers are asked to volunteer for the entire time of the visit, lunch will be provided by IEEE. The number of IEEE volunteer slots is limited to a first volunteer, first-serve basis. So don't wait too long to volunteer. We will schedule a conference call a few days before the date to help answer any additional questions from registered volunteers. About IEEE TryEngineering Summer Institue At the TryEngineering Summer Institute (https://tryengineeringinstitute.ieee.org/), you’ll explore various engineering fields, such as electrical, civil, mechanical, and aerospace. Our STEM summer course allows you to meet working engineers and experience VIP tours of engineering companies and centers. Learn new skills and engage in hands-on projects that explore how engineers can solve real-world problems. The TryEngineering Summer Institute is a program from (https://www.ieee.org/), the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology. Our more than 417,000 members in 160 countries, including more than 120,000 student members, help us provide the trusted "voice" for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe via highly-cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities. Our curriculum is created specifically for this program by IEEE STEM summer specialists. Co-sponsored by: Houston Section Agenda: Wednesday, July 13, 2022 - 10:00 am - 12:00 pm: NASA Tour Begins - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch - 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: NASA Guest Speaker - 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Wrap up visit special tour. Bldg: NASA Space Center Houston, 1601 E NASA Pkwy, Houston, Texas, United States, 77058

The ability of a robot to operate in an uncertain environment, such as near humans or far away under human control, potentially opens myriad uses. Examples include robots preparing the Mars surface for human arrival; robots for assembly of large space telescopes; robot helpers for the elderly; robotic search and disposal of war mines. So far advances in this area have been coming slowly, with a focus on specific tasks rather than a universal ability typical in nature. Challenges appear both on the robotics side and on the human side: robots have a hard time adjusting to an unstructured environment, whereas human cognition has serious limits in adjusting to robots and grasping complex 2D and 3D motion tasks. As a result, applications where robots operate near humans – or far away under their control – are exceedingly rare. The way out of this impasse is to supply the robot with whole-body sensing - an ability to sense surrounding objects at the robot’s whole body - and algorithms capable of utilizing these data in real-time. This calls for large-area flexible sensing arrays - sensitive skin covering the whole robot body akin to the skin covering the human body. Whole-body sensing brings interesting, even unexpected, properties: powerful robots become inherently safe; human operators can move them fast, with “natural” speeds; robot motion strategies exceed human spatial reasoning skills; it becomes realistic to utilize the natural synergy of human-robot teams and allow a mix of supervised and unsupervised robot operation. We will review the cognitive science, mathematical, algorithmic, and hardware (materials, electronics, computing) issues involved in realizing such systems. Speaker(s): Vladimir, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318482

Wearable computing is a relatively new area of research and development that aims at supporting people in different application domains: health-care (monitoring assisted living), fitness (monitoring athletes), social interactions (enabling multi-user activity recognition, e.g. handshake), videogames (enabling joystick-less interactions), factory (monitoring employees in their activity), etc. Wearable computing is based on wearable computing devices/interfaces such as sensor nodes (e.g. to measure heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen, etc), common life objects (e.g. watch, belt, etc), and smartphones/PDA. Wearable computing has been recently boosted by the introduction of body sensor networks (BSNs), i.e. networks of wireless wearable sensor nodes coordinated by more capable coordinators (smartphones, tablets, PCs). Although the basic elements (sensors, protocols, coordinators) of a BSN are available (already from a commercial point of view), developing BSN systems/applications is a complex task that requires suitable design methods based on effective and efficient programming frameworks. In this DL, we will first discuss the state-of-the-art of currently available wearable computing systems based on BSNs. Then, we will focus on the main results achieved in the SPINE project (http://spine.deis.unical.it), currently led by Prof. Fortino’s research group, in terms of defined models, methodology, algorithms, and real prototypes (e.g. activity/gesture recognition systems, fall detection systems, mobile ECG processing systems, elbow/knee rehabilitation systems, emotion recognition systems, etc.). Based on SPINE, we also developed C-SPINE to support the development of collaborative systems based on BSNs and able to detect/classify multi-user activity. Examples will be given in the area of COVID-19 tracing and support platforms. Finally, the DL will enumerate and discuss future research challenges along with possible solutions in such exciting research domains. Learning points: • Body sensor networks: sensors (physiological sensors, inertial sensors, pressure sensors), architectures and communications patterns/protocols • Body sensor networks programming and management issues • The SPINE (Signal Processing In-Node Environment) framework: basic concepts (sensors hardware adaptation, drivers addition, sensors programming, data collection, in-node data processing) • SPINE wearable sensor-based prototypes: from Human Activity recognition to Cardiac Defense Response detection and Limb Rehabilitation. • C-SPINE for the Development of Collaborative BSNs and its application for humans’ tracing/distancing platforms • Future research challenges in BSNs: from wearable stretchable sensors to autonomic sensor platforms. Speaker(s): Giancarl, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318483

Mobile robot olfaction studies the integration and application of the sense of smell into mobile robots. This widely multidisciplinary research area deals with a variety of problems such as chemical sensing, odour dispersion and environmental state estimation, optimal sampling, wide area searching, path planning, and machine learning. This talk provides an overview of the field, introducing the odour dispersion phenomenon and the problems of finding its parameters from the inversion of concentration measurements. Then, a brief survey of the existing odour sensing technologies and their corresponding limitations is provided. The main methods to search odour sources with mobile robots are reactive strategies, heuristic search, and probabilistic inference methods. These approaches are frequently dependent on the environment characteristics, but this dependence may be mitigated by machine learning approaches. Speaker(s): Giancarl, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318485

Mobile robot olfaction studies the integration and application of the sense of smell into mobile robots. This widely multidisciplinary research area deals with a variety of problems such as chemical sensing, odour dispersion and environmental state estimation, optimal sampling, wide area searching, path planning, and machine learning. This talk provides an overview of the field, introducing the odour dispersion phenomenon and the problems of finding its parameters from the inversion of concentration measurements. Then, a brief survey of the existing odour sensing technologies and their corresponding limitations is provided. The main methods to search odour sources with mobile robots are reactive strategies, heuristic search, and probabilistic inference methods. These approaches are frequently dependent on the environment characteristics, but this dependence may be mitigated by machine learning approaches. More information: (https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318485) Co-sponsored by: S Z Taqvi Speaker(s): Lino Marques, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/event/register/318797

This is the first of the three presentations during the GBS PES WEEK Electrification of the transportation industry and large-scale integration of renewable energy sources into the power grid represent some of the most disruptive transformations of our time. This engineering field brings ideas from Computational electromagnetics, power and energy, electromechanics, IoT, and artificial intelligence. This enables the creation of efficient, reliable, safe, and environmentally friendly means of implementing these ideas in new applications. In this talk, we will share our views on the future of these applications through a detailed discussion of the roles of computational modeling, Power electronics architectures, devices, the embedding of components, challenges of utilizing magnetics, and thermal management under higher operational frequencies, currents, and voltages. We will discuss packaging issues and describe some applications requiring increased power densities. This part of the presentation will identify the areas of research, which hold the promise of high impact and potential for achieving improved performance. Speaker(s): Prof Mohammed, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318812

This is the second of the three presentations of GBS POWER AND ENGINEERING WEEK This talk will familiarize participants with a vision for Grid Modernization, focusing on technological advancements beyond Smart Grid. The technological advancements include discussions of key industry/societal trends, Smart Grid concepts, holistic solutions, integration of microgrids and distributed generation, and Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) software applications. The talk will also cover feeder automation business models, managing different types of data, big data, analytics, enterprise data management, Smart Grid standards and interoperability, and Smart Grid deployments and lessons learned. Speaker(s): John, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318560

This is the third and final presentation of GBS POWER AND ENERGY WEEK. Achieving net-zero emissions is a global challenge, requiring technical innovations, policy making, investment, and cultural change. A major aspect of this challenge is the electrification of aerial, marine, and ground transportation. The past decade has witnessed the exponential growth of electric vehicles (EVs), aided by improved design, cost reduction, tax credits, and environmental awareness. To meet this growth rate, charging infrastructure must be developed, modernized, and improved as per the charging demand. However, the impact of adding EVs as charging loads to the utility grid makes this infrastructure update more complex, especially in low-voltage distribution systems. Thus, to address this complex process, a thorough understanding of the underlying charging speeds, existing load demand, and voltage profile/power quality of the utility grid is necessary. This talk focuses on exploring the key players of EV impact on utility grids. Different charging strategies to demonstrate the power variance as a function of charging speed will be discussed, followed by design requirements of onboard vs offboard chargers. Datasheets of a few commercial chargers will be examined. The impact of adding EVs on the grid vitals like voltage profile, peak load, average demand, and unit pricing will be analyzed. Finally, case studies of a 33-bus IEEE system, with an estimation of EV penetration capability, and potential solutions to maximize the penetration will be Speaker(s): SYED, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318561