VIRTUAL COLLABORATION HELPS MAKE THINGS SMALLER

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas, Oklahoma State University and the University of Nebraska have received nearly $2 million to stretch the current limits of collaboration through virtual reality and study sub-microscopic systems. The scientists seek to create these small systems for use in medical drug delivery, space craft parts and defense systems.

The money, from the National Science Foundation and from matching funds, will be used to create the Center of Excellence for Durable Miniaturized Systems, which will serve all three universities, said Ajay Malshe, University of Arkansas assistant professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator for the project.

The project’s novelty lies in both the science and technology to be studied and the way the scientists will study them. Many researchers are currently striving to make smaller computers, monitors, analyzers and communications tools, because smaller devices use less power, often work faster, and become more portable.

However, as these items get smaller, the reliability and durability of materials involved in making the devices becomes essential to their operation, Malshe said. And the materials’ physical proximity and interfacing at micro and sub-micro scales offer new scientific and technological challenges through microscopic interactions that weren’t important when the device was larger.

"With small systems, everything affects durability," Malshe said.

Solving the problems of materials in miniature systems requires the talents of physicists, chemists and engineers, and collaboration on a high level.

The center will focus primarily on three areas: First, scientists will build and study the surface interactions of micro-electronic mechanical systems (MEMS).

Second, researchers will examine the durability and lifetime of quantum dots, optical detectors and switches barely larger than atoms. They will study how those properties change with time.

Third, the researchers will work on designing a miniature microscope on a chip that can read permanent ultradense memory placed in a tiny crystal.

Each university has particular expertise that, when combined with the other institutions, will create great strengths in these fields, Malshe said.

A distributed interactive studio house (DISH), which integrates the conventional classroom with a sophisticated research laboratory, will be established for efficient communication at different levels between the distributed centers at Fayetteville, Lincoln, Neb. and Stillwater, Okla. The DISH, to be established at each of these sites, will be a studio containing different means of sharing resources like "shared" classrooms, a facility for video conferences and experimental set-ups that could be shared in real-time.

The researchers will use virtual reality techniques and share resources through Internet II, the high-performance Internet available to select universities, to bring the laboratories together and thus virtually break geographical barriers. This will work on three levels. First, personal computers will be connected so the collaborators can communicate using real-time audio and visual means, said Sharad Yedave, University of Arkansas research faculty, who will be responsible for establishing and managing the DISH facility using Internet II.

Second, students on each campus will have access to courses at the other two through virtual classrooms, in which a professor at one institution can write on a board and students at all three locations can see what the professor has written. This will increase the variety of courses students on all three campuses can choose from, and will assist in building academically rich, interdisciplinary programs at each institution, Malshe said.

Third, researchers will be able to collaborate in virtual laboratories, working on shared designs and set-ups in real time.

"The researchers will feel like they are in the same laboratory, even though they are actually hundreds of miles away," Malshe said.

Knowledge is progressing rapidly, but human beings still have the same limitations, he said. The new virtual reality technology will help increase researcher’s productivity and allow students to learn more, he said.

There are more than 15 participating faculty from the three campuses. Some of the leading faculty involved in the center from the U of A campus are William Brown, electrical engineering; William Schmidt, mechanical engineering; Matt Gordon, mechanical engineering; Greg Salamo, physics; Ken Vickers, physics; and William Springer, mechanical engineering. The coordinators at the University of Nebraska and Oklahoma State University are Dennis Alexander and Edward Knobbe, respectively.

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