The Georgia Institute of Technology was recently awarded $1.48 million of proposed funding from the Department of Defense to support the purchase of state-of-the-art research equipment.

Georgia Tech was one of 100 academic institutions to receive awards from the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, which is designed to augment university capabilities to conduct research and educate scientists in areas important to national defense.

Georgia Tech’s winning proposals for acquisition of research equipment include:

• Eric Feron, professor of aerospace software engineering, will receive $299,985 for experimental equipment for distributed engine analysis and control.
• Seyed Ghiaasiaan, professor mechanical engineering, will receive $129,253 for instrumentation for cryocooler research.
• Daniel Goldman, assistant professor of physics, will receive $180,000 for x-ray imaging systems to enhance subsurface visualization.
• Andrea Thomaz, assistant professor of interactive computing, will receive $422,000 for mobile humanoid for human-robot interaction research.
• Panagiotis Tsiotras, professor of aerospace engineering, will receive $98,000 for scaled platform for unmanned ground vehicle operation in extreme conditions.
• Zhiqun Lin, professor of materials science and engineering, will receive $250,186 for atomic force microscope for nanocomposite, energy and biotechnology research.
• Minami Yoda, professor of mechanical engineering, will receive $101,695 for imaging system to use evanescent-wave particle velocimetry for wall turbulence.

The Defense University Research Instrumentation Program meets a critical need by enabling university researchers to purchase scientific equipment costing $50,000 or more. This equipment accelerates research progress and ensures world-class research training for the next generation of scientists and engineers in defense-critical fields.

In total, the defense program awarded $54.7 million on May 8 to 100 universities across the nation for research in surface chemistry and physics, computing and networks, electronics and electro optics, neuroscience, fluid dynamics and propulsion, robotics and autonomous systems, and ocean, environmental and biological science and engineering.