CIMMS Lunchtime Series: Biomimetically Inspired Micro Aerial and Underwater Vehicles for Environmental Measurement

Dr. Kamran Mohseni, University of Colorado, Boulder
Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences,

With the advent of miniaturization technologies, we are well on our way to seeing routine use of micro- and nano-electromechanical systems in everyday life as well as exotic applications in environmental engineering. Predictions about the far-reaching implications and widespread prevalence of such miniaturized, smart, integrated systems and sub-systems have been made. Design of such systems often involves multi-physics and multi-scale problems. This talk presents a brief summary of such activities in my group. In particular, I will focus on two topics; one on the unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles and the other on micro/nanofluidic capabilities for sensing and actuation required in such systems. In the first topic, I will describe the design, fabrication, simulation, and testing of a loosely cooperative Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) network for plume characterization. In the  second part of the talk I will describe microfluidic thrusters and droplet manipulation for applications in flow control and chem/bio-sensors, respectively. Modeling, fabrication, visualization, and simulation results will be presented.