Students and faculty in the Department of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering are some of the more prolific researchers in the Embry-Riddle family. The department's research expenditures are nearly one-half those of the entire College of Engineering, with support from federal agencies including NSF, FAA, and NOAA as well as industry partners. The department is heavily involved in projects managed by ERAU's NEAR Lab and by the COE's Eagle Flight Research Center.

Strategic department research directions include three areas critical for the future of aerospace. These are:

  • Detect and avoid technologies for unmanned aircraft systems;
  • Assured systems for aerospace, including cybersecurity and development assurance;
  • Modeling and simulation for aviation and aerospace.

Detect and avoid technologies enable unmanned aircraft systems to "see and be seen" by other aircraft and by air traffic controllers on the ground. Of particular challenge is detect and avoid of uncooperative aircraft, those aircraft that aren't equipped to announce their position either automatically or in response to interrogations from the ground.

Assured systems are those that are robust in the face of cybersecurity challenges, with assured development being system design approaches that yield assured systems without high overhead.

Modeling and simulation for aviation involves everything from the logistics of getting passengers onto aircraft to planning how to get all air traffic around predicted bad weather without upsetting arrival times and locations.

CAREER: Additively Manufactured 3D Reconfigurable Antennas

PI Eduardo Rojas

​The focus of this CARRER development project is on an emerging antenna fabrication technique that combines additive manufacturing (AM) and pulsed laser machining that has the potentials to fundamentally alter the existing state of the art. 

Antennas are key components of ubiquitous wireless communication, radar, and navigation systems that affect widespread societal needs, such as aerospace systems, healthcare, and space exploration. Most of the antennas used in a variety of applications including cellular phones to unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are based on flat planar structures or wire geometries that are developed using traditional manufacturing technique. This approach does not allow designers the opportunity to fully leverage the geometry, space, and materials available to design better performing antennas. The focus of this CARRER development project is on an emerging antenna fabrication technique that combines additive manufacturing (AM) and pulsed laser machining that has the potentials to fundamentally alter the existing state of the art. The proposed research will allow engineers to implement smaller, efficient, lighter, and reconfigurable antenna embodiments in three-dimensions (3D) for future applications with increasing complexity. The research proposed in this project is fully integrated with an education and outreach plan. The educational plan will impact the next generation of professionals by exposing high school students to hands-on activities and videos to explain basic antenna engineering concepts. The videos will be made by accomplished engineers in the engineering field to have a strong role-model-based motivational component to stimulate them to pursue STEM careers. An advanced cellular phone-based teaching tool that allows engineering undergraduate students to visualize complex 3D concepts in electromagnetics and antenna engineering is also proposed.

The overall goal of this project is to pursue the discovery of the next generation of antennas with reconfigurable performance while conserving size, weight and cost. Research initiatives include: (a) the investigation of novel additive manufacturing processes for the fabrication of conformal 3D multiple curved antennas based on laser-enhanced direct print AM (LE-DPAM) with femtosecond laser machining and 5-axis kinematics, (b) the study of bio-inspired 3D superior antenna geometries that are not possible to manufacture using traditional methods but are conceivable using LE-DPAM, (c) the development of design methods based on a novel 3D to 2D conformal mapping technique, (d) the study of embedded material- and IC-based reconfigurability mechanisms including the use of electrically tunable inks that can be deposited on conformal surfaces, as well as IC-based switches for reconfiguration of antenna feeds and loads, and (e) the investigation of the structure-property relationships of commercially available and custom-formulated inks that provide excellent electromagnetic performance while addressing the needs for aviation and space environments.

Researchers

  • Eduardo Rojas

    Eduardo Rojas

    Department
    Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept
    Degrees
    Ph.D., M.S., University of South Florida