technizzel

The Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) team won “rookie of the year,” third place overall out of 47 teams and first place in the design challenge portion of the 16th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, held May 30 to June 2 at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich.

The competition required student teams to design and create small, unmanned outdoor vehicles capable of negotiating obstacles and navigating with the use of GPS. Teams also were judged on their robot’s ability to understand and respond to a standardized messaging system called Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems. A number of organizations, including the U.S. Army and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, sponsored the competition.

PAVE’s winning entry, Kratos, was named after a son of Zeus in Greek mythology. Featuring two cameras as “eyes” and a GPS navigational system, Kratos is able to “see” objects surrounding it and determine its position relative to those obstacles. Kratos can then choose the best path to follow in order to avoid collision or stay within defined lane boundaries.

Kratos won fourth place in the navigation portion of the IGVC, reaching seven GPS waypoints in a field filled with obstacles in just over three and a half minutes. The robot placed sixth in the lane-following and obstacle avoidance segment, traveling 223 feet on a course that at times required the robot to navigate around a center island in the path and even double back on itself. Videos from all three days of the competition are available on the PAVE website.

The Kratos technology was based on systems PAVE designed for Prospect 12, their entry in this year’s Urban Challenge competition of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A disappointing finish at the Urban Challenge competition semifinals inspired nine members of the team to enter the IGVC.

“Technically, the hardest part of the IGVC for us was taking the technology from the Urban Challenge and changing the decision-making logic to help the robot see objects,” said Andrew Saxe ’08, who received regular text message updates from his teammates at the competition since his graduation from Princeton conflicted with the IGVC. Even after overcoming technical obstacles, the students had quite a long journey ahead of them — the 640 mile drive they made from Princeton to Michigan in a rental van large enough to accommodate Kratos.

The nine members of the team are “an extremely talented and motivated group of undergraduates,” said computer science professor Robert Schapire. “I am officially their advisor, but I can assure you that the project was entirely theirs from start to finish.”

The opportunity to take ownership of the robot design and creation was one of the most valuable aspects of the experience, Saxe said. “It teaches you to do all the ‘under the hood’ things. It is very different to learn about something in class and to implement it on a robot that has to work.”

His teammate Gordon Franken, a junior mechanical and aerospace engineering major, agreed.

“This competition highlights the difference between academic and professional knowledge, between the classroom and the real world,” Franken said. “We get to have the opportunity to develop real-world knowledge at the undergraduate level, as opposed to waiting for graduate school or getting into industry.”

PAVE, the University’s only student-run research team with its own laboratory space, will be seeking new members in the fall and hopes to enter next year’s IGVC.

by Hilary Parker

As junior Nick Frey sat in his fluid mechanics course last spring, he was thinking about bicycles — but he wasn’t daydreaming.

Rather, the mechanical and aerospace engineering major was conjuring ways to put his newfound knowledge to work in modifications to his racing bike. The reigning national time-trial champion and co-president of the University cycling team, Frey has aerodynamic aspirations that go far beyond taping the vents on his helmet — a common practice among racing cyclists to reduce wind resistance.

The day before heading to the world championships in Germany this fall, Princeton junior Nick Frey put himself through a grueling test to simulate the upcoming race route. He records distance, speed, cadence and power output during workouts like these in the Dillon Gymnasium bike room to determine his best racing strategy. Photo by Denise Applewhite“Nick was one of the most active students in my class — always wanting to know more details, or to make sure he understood everything,” said Alexander Smits, the chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Frey’s fluid mechanics professor. “It was great to have him in the class. He bemoaned the fact that Barrie Royce and I were no longer offering our freshman course, ‘The Bicycle and the Engineer,’ but he seems to have put his fluid dynamics know-how to very good use.”

A prime example is the modification Frey made to house the brake cables on his time-trial bike. When he learned that solid cylinders have high air resistance, Frey equated cylinders with bicycle brake cables — and saw an opportunity to go faster.

He knew that once an object, such as a cyclist, is moving fast enough, the main barrier to going even faster is wind resistance; nearly all the cyclist’s strength goes into pushing aside air. Conversely, reducing that resistance by a relatively small amount can result in major increases in speed with minimal increased effort. So Frey enclosed his brake cables in a special housing shaped like an airplane wing that shields them from the wind, reducing the resistance on his bike while still meeting the requirements of the organization that oversees competitive cycling events throughout the world, the Union Cycliste Internationale.

“It’s like free speed,” said Frey, a junior. “And in cycling, every second counts.”

Frey speaks from experience — in July, he won the 2007 U.S. Espoir National Time Trial for men under age 23 by 1.3 seconds.

His passion for cycling began when Frey was 14, growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. He got his first mountain bike, he recalls, and immediately became “obsessed” with the gear.

“We call it ‘getting geeked out’ in the cycling world,” he says. “So, I guess I would say I was an engineer before a cyclist. The cool gadgetry of cycling got me interested in the sport.”

A mountain-biking buddy introduced him to racing the following year. Frey promptly took sixth place at the junior national championship, and that was it. He was hooked.

After arriving at Princeton, Frey began to apply his engineering skills to his cycling. His extensive research pervades his cycling equipment, from the helmet he purchased to match his riding posture to the silicon gel between his wheel rims and tires that subtly changes the shape of his tires, making them more aerodynamic.

Even his own performance is subject to rigorous analysis. During tests in the bike room in Dillon Gymnasium, with his bike on stationary mounts and recordings of previous Tours de France on the television in front of him, Frey measures all aspects of performance. Distance and speed are just the beginning: He also records cadence and power output and creates complex graphs of the data to analyze his rides. He posts his training and performance results, along with details about various races, on his blog.

After a hard midday ride, Frey hangs up his bike and checks the power meter one last time. Photo by Denise ApplewhiteAll the top professional cyclists obtain similar information about their own performances, but they don’t usually do the analyses themselves. Frey prefers it his way, feeling that it gives him an extra edge as he strategizes for upcoming races.

During this summer’s national time trial race, his average speed was around 30 miles per hour for just about 30 minutes. He calculated that his average power for a 15-minute period during the race was 377 watts, just over half of a horsepower. This performance landed him a chance to compete in the Sept. 26 world championship time trial in Stuttgart, Germany.

In preparation for the competition, Frey conducted a series of tests to determine his best racing strategy. The day before leaving for Germany, he simulated riding up a major hill on the actual race route.

“I wanted to determine the maximum intensity I can put out when I’m going up the hill without overdoing it,” he said, after finishing the test. “If I figure out the power output I should maintain, it’ll be kind of like playing a little video game at the race — staring at my power monitor as I go up the hill. If you don’t know how hard to go, it’s easy to hit the hill way too fast and your legs’ll be toast by the time you get to the top.”

At the world competition, Frey had the opportunity to share rides and meals with some of the top cyclists in the world, including fellow Iowan Jason McCartney and Dave Zabriskie. Zabriskie is one of only three Americans ever to wear the leader’s yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

“It’s so amazing to see that these guys are doing the same thing I’m doing — they’re just bike riders,” he said. “It’s so inspirational. They show you that if you’ve got some talent and luck, and if you stick with it, you can get to their level. McCartney trained on the same awful roads that I did in Iowa — it’s so cool to think about what is possible.”

Spending time with these professional riders and hearing about their past competitions helped shape the way that Frey reacted to his performance at the world championship, where he took 57th place.

“At first, I was really disappointed, mainly because I felt like I let down all these people who were supporting me — my parents, the U.S. team, the mechanics,” he said. “But then, I realized that they understand that everyone can have really amazing rides and really bad rides, and so then I was really happy that I got to worlds in the first place. And then, right away, I started to think about what I’ll do differently next year — because I plan on getting there again next year.”

His plan for his future extends beyond training strategies to professional ambitions that combine his interests in engineering and cycling. His goal is to start a company that designs cycling gear, accessories and gadgets that push the limits of speed or enhance the sport of cycling. He is honing his product design and marketing skills this semester in “Entrepreneurial Engineering,” a course taught by Daniel Nosenchuck, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Frey previously gained valuable experience in product design this summer in an internship at Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Working with a team of engineers, Frey helped design the electronics packaging for a future satellite.

“I approached it the same way I’ve been taught to approach problems in engineering classes, by being open to nontraditional solutions,” he said. This open-minded attitude allowed him to contribute new ideas to a team of many longtime engineers.

With the world championship behind him, Frey took an unprecedented two weeks off from riding his bike, even just to class. Though his newfound, albeit brief, status as a pedestrian resulted in his being late to class a time or two, he said it was the best way to recover from the tough summer of racing and ready his body for next year’s competitions.

During his normal cycling regimen, he’ll spend between 20 and 25 hours on his bike each week, often riding with his teammates on the cycling team. At other times, he’ll take off by himself, with no firm plans for where he’ll ride, not sure of much more than how long he plans to spend on his bike. His circuitous routes often take him through the New Jersey towns of Frenchtown and Ringoes, or across the Delaware River to Doylestown, Pa.

“I don’t start out with a laundry list of things to do, because then it feels more like a job and I want to enjoy what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s not that complicated,” he added, before sharing his personal philosophy: “Get on the bike and ride.”

Posted by Hilary Parker

Mechanical and aerospace engineering major Zhen Xia is accustomed to solving problems that have cut-and-dried solutions, but an internship at IBM this past summer taught him how to approach problems that don’t have one right answer.

As part of a new internship program, Xia spent three months working with senior marketing executives at the IBM corporate offices in Somers, N.Y. From analyzing the brand’s image to establishing a business case for a new product launch, he found himself in the midst of the complicated intricacies of the business world.

“Unlike technical problem-solving where everything is black and white, problem-solving in business deals heavily with people and customers who have many different viewpoints,” Xia said. “In business, there are various shades of gray, which make things exciting and interesting.”

Mechanical and aerospace engineering major Zhen Xia worked at IBM corporate offices in Somers, N.Y., with senior marketing executives including Florence Hudson, who earned her degree in the same field from Princeton in 1980. (Photo: Alan Zale)

This is precisely the type of knowledge that the creators of the Preparing to Lead internship program hoped rising seniors would gain from the experience, which closely pairs undergraduates with business leaders to provide opportunities that wouldn’t be possible in traditional internships. Offered by the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, the program was first envisioned by center director Sharad Malik to help prepare Princeton students for leadership positions in a technology-driven society.

“Our expectation is that Princeton students will rise to the highest level, and this program allows them the opportunity to experience corporate leadership before they even begin their careers,” said Malik, the George Van Ness Lothrop Professor of Engineering.

The valuable learning experiences were made possible by a strong alumni network, which counts among its ranks many leaders in technological businesses. In the inaugural year of the Preparing to Lead program, five executives from a variety of corporations worked with the School of Engineering and Applied Science to design internships for six current undergraduates. Students applied for the program through the Office of Career Services TigerTracks system, and partner corporations interviewed applicants and made hiring decisions.

“How better to expose our students to corporate decision-making than by placing them in close proximity to senior executives?” asked Bob Monsour, associate director of external affairs for the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, who facilitated the internships.

Florence Hudson, the vice president of marketing and strategy for IBM mainframe System z, served as Xia’s mentor throughout the summer. A 1980 Princeton graduate with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, Hudson jumped at the chance to share what she has learned throughout her career. Over the course of the summer, she met with Xia regularly to discuss leadership and engage him in real projects.

“Being a business leader with an engineering degree from Princeton, and knowing how much I didn’t know about business when I graduated, I knew I wanted to teach a Princeton engineering student what I’ve learned about business and leadership,” Hudson said. “It’s important to understand how to lead others to do what’s right, how to link the business needs and value to the engineering and technology, and how to succeed in the complex world of business.”

During Xia’s time at IBM, he also worked closely with John Burg, System z product marketing manager, which provided him with another valuable perspective on corporate leadership.

“I loved my weekly talks with Florence and John,” Xia said. “They shared a lot of their personal experiences and career development advice. One of my most memorable conversations with Florence was about speed bumps. She told me that life is like a series of speed bumps: obstacles may slow you down but will never stop you as long as you believe in yourself.”

WildPackets chairman Mahboud Zabetian (left), a member of the Princeton class of 1988, shared his corporate experiences with senior Saed Al Shonnar at the network software company in Walnut Creek, Calif. A chemical engineering major, Al Shonnar plans to put his newfound corporate knowledge to use in future entrepreneurial ventures. (Photo: Bob Monsour)

While Xia spent his summer at a corporate giant, other students in the Preparing to Lead program had the opportunity to witness the inner workings of much smaller businesses. Saed Al Shonnar, a senior majoring in chemical engineering, spent two months conducting market research for WildPackets, a network software company in Walnut Creek, Calif. Al Shonnar reported to WildPackets chairman Mahboud Zabetian, a member of the Princeton class of 1988.

With an interest in entrepreneurship, Al Shonnar applied to the Preparing to Lead program seeking to examine the inner-workings of a small company. He wasn’t disappointed.

“The internship is exactly the kind of experience I was hoping to have this summer,” he said. “I have been closely exposed to the dynamics of a small- to medium-sized company and I learned more about business aspects applicable to most companies.”

The first year of the Preparing to Lead program also placed Eva Leung at medical device firm Integra LifeSciences in Plainsboro, N.J., Geoffrey Hamilton at e-mail marketing company Return Path in New York City, and Ruth Fombrun and Malik Saunders at Sealed Air, a global packaging company, in Elmwood Park, N.J., and Greenville, S.C., respectively.

Ruth Fombrun was one of six Princeton undergraduates who completed internships this past summer through Preparing to Lead, a program that pairs rising seniors with business leaders to provide opportunities that wouldn’t be possible in traditional experiences. “Unlike other engineering-related internships I considered, ‘Preparing to Lead’ offered me exposure and learning opportunities in both business and engineering, which was critical for someone like myself whose interests had migrated closer to business and further from a traditional engineering career,” said Fombrun, a chemical engineering major who worked in the treasury department at Sealed Air, a global packaging company in Elmwood Park, N.J. (Photo: Courtesy of Sealed Air)

“Unlike other engineering-related internships I considered, ‘Preparing to Lead’ offered me exposure and learning opportunities in both business and engineering, which was critical for someone like myself whose interests had migrated closer to business and further from a traditional engineering career,” said Fombrun, a chemical engineering major who worked in the Sealed Air treasury department. “I learned so much more about business and finance than I ever could have imagined.”

Malik and Monsour said they are pleased with the success of the program in its first year and look forward to improving upon it in years to come. In addition to enlarging the program to include opportunities for more students at a greater number of companies, they hope to increase the amount of time interns spend interacting with their corporate mentors. To introduce more students to the program, this year’s interns will participate in a panel discussion during the upcoming academic year.

Xia, for his part, looks forward to telling interested students about his Preparing to Lead experience and helping the program to grow.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better experience at IBM,” he said. “Every week, there was something new, so I wouldn’t say there was ever a typical week. I was constantly able to work on new things.”

Article Courtesy of Princeton University

Princeton undergraduates who have engineered a self-driving car designed to navigate city streets without human help have been selected as semifinalists in a hotly contested Pentagon competition with top prizes worth $3.5 million.

The Princeton team was among 36 semifinalists named last week by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in its “Urban Challenge” — a competition whose purpose is to spur innovation in autonomous robotic vehicles.

In May, DARPA winnowed the field of competitors from 89 entrants to 53. Each of the remaining teams received a site visit this summer from DARPA officials. Princeton’s site visit was July 9. After completing its site visits, DARPA announced the semifinalists.

During the final week of October, Princeton and the other semifinalists will compete in a National Qualification Event at an urban military training facility located on the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif. Vehicles in the competition must be able to merge into moving traffic, navigate traffic circles, avoid moving obstacles and obey California traffic laws — without any human assistance.

The Princeton team takes a break from the grueling site visit to pose for a photograph with DARPA officials (in red hats). Photo by Thomas Franken.Twenty finalists from that competition will then go on to the final competition on Nov. 3 at the same site. DARPA will award cash prizes to the top three winners: $2 million for first prize; $1 million for second prize; and $500,000 for third prize.

The Princeton team is unique among the other competitors in that it is entirely an undergraduate-led effort and receives little assistance from outside industry, according to team spokesman Gordon Franken.

“The fabulous thing about Princeton is that it is a place where a group of undergraduates can go out and enter a national competition like this,” said Franken. “At another university, we may not have had the opportunity to be involved at all or we would have been working for graduate students or professors.”

The Princeton team operates on what is comparatively a shoestring budget — so far it has spent about $75,000 while many other teams have corporate sponsorship and budgets of $1 million or more. Franken said the team will need an infusion of cash to make it to the finish line. “We are looking to raise up to $100,000 in donations and corporate sponsorship to cover upcoming logistical expenses, travel and additional technology,” he said.

Michelle Won from WZBN-TV interviews Princeton team member Brendan Collins before the site visit officially begins. Photo by Thomas Franken.The Princeton team was a surprise finalist in DARPA’s last Grand Challenge competition in 2005, a race across the Mojave Desert.

The Princeton effort is entirely an extracurricular activity; students must keep up with regular coursework while working at a brisk pace to meet DARPA milestones.

“Yes, we want to win, but mainly this is about enhancing the students’ academic experience,” said Alain Kornhauser, a professor of operations research and financial engineering who is the team’s faculty adviser. “In terms of what they are learning, DARPA’s site visit last month was probably worth a year of tuition.”

Frontiers of health: Sight for sore eyes
Ultra-short laser pulses may allow easier LASIK
by Hilary Parker

Szymon Suckewer needs eye surgery, but he’s not going under the knife just yet—he’d rather wait until no knife is necessary. Having recently developed an incision-free eye surgery technique, he’s confident that will soon be an option.

Szymon Suckewer (center) takes an up-close look at the laser that may one day sharpen his vision. He is part of a five-person team, which includes Alexander Smits (left) and Richard Register (right), working to develop better eye surgery techniques. Photo by Frank Wojciechowski

The breakthrough hinges on the use of femtosecond lasers, which deliver ultra-short pulses of light. Suckewer, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and co-director of the Program in Plasma Science and Technology, pioneered the development of these powerful devices in the 1990s.

The applications of the lasers for eye surgery were developed by a five-person team that includes Suckewer, chemical engineering professor Richard Register and Alexander Smits, professor and chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The three work closely with ophthalmologist Peter Hersh ‘78, director of cornea and refractive surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and Peter Frederikse, an assistant professor of pharmacology and physiology at UMDNJ.

Current LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) surgery requires removal of a flap of the cornea before a laser (which produces a much longer blast of light than a femtosecond laser) is used to reshape the inner part of the cornea. Surgery done with femtosecond lasers will feature more precise cuts and eliminate the need for a flap, since they can create and travel through small channels in the cornea.

“The difference is like cutting with a pair of dull scissors versus a precise scalpel,” Suckewer said. “And, because it generates less heat and there’s no flap, there is also a much faster recovery period.”

The team also plans to use the ultrashort pulse lasers to enable the first surgical cure for presbyopia, the age-related vision loss that occurs as the lens stiffens and the muscles that focus it weaken.

Register’s materials science skills led to the creation of a polymer that can be used to replace old and damaged lens tissue. Since the substance is a liquid that rapidly gels to a solid, it can be injected through the small channels made by the laser. Smits’ expertise in fluid mechanics was critical in the development of a process to remove damaged portions of the lens and replace them with the polymer.

“It was important to match the physical properties of the lens with the polymer,” said Register, who directs the Princeton Center for Complex Materials. “This substance is chemically different, but it matches the stiffness and refractive index of the lens, so it focuses light in the same way.”

The new technique for flapless FemtoLASIK cornea reshaping will soon be tested on animals and then humans, and could be ready for use in hospitals within three to four years. The researchers are considering starting a company based on their work and are currently in discussions with potential investors. The team’s other projects include the development of a liquid bandage for corneal abrasions and the use of femtosecond lasers to reshape contact lenses.

Article Courtesy of: Princeton’s School of Engineering