The SRSL team recently received an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate probabilistic and explainable deep learning for the intuitive predictive maintenance of industrial and agricultural equipment. The approach will not only predict the remaining useful life of a machine component, but it will also quantify the uncertainty of a prediction. As a result, maintenance decisions can be made from a risk-based perspective, eliminating unnecessary maintenance stemming from low-confidence predictions. This STTR Phase I project is in collaboration with a local-to-Iowa industry partner, Percēv (a subsidiary of Grace Technologies) and Grace, and is set to be completed in November 2021.
News
Rising Stars Spotlight: Venkat Nemani and Jinqiang Liu
Congrats to Venkat and Jinqiang for being recognized as “Rising Stars” by The REMADE Institute. Both have made outstanding contributions to our REMADE project titled “Data-Driven Design Support for Re-X of High-Value Components in Industrial and Agricultural Equipment”. Read more about their work on this project through the links below:
Venkat and Jinqiang – Well done and well deserved! Congratulations!
Research on Machine Health Monitoring Highlighted
Our research collaboration with Vermeer Corporation on machine health monitoring was highlighted by the College of Engineering (COE) at Iowa State University (COE News). We have a passion for bringing research to practice by producing practical and directly applicable solutions to hard-to-solve engineering problems.
Todd and Rohan Joined Our Group!
Todd Thompson and Rohan Rao joined SRSL for their Ph.D. studies. Todd is a Staff Engineer in the John Deere Power Systems group. He will work on his doctoral research at ISU while working at Deere. Prior to joining SRSL, Rohan obtained his Bachelor’s degree from IIT Bombay in India and spent two years working as an Engineer at TEX E.G. Co., Ltd. in Japan. Welcome, Todd and Rohan!
Sheng Passed Final Defense
Sheng passed his Ph.D. final oral exam. Big congrats to Dr. Shen!
New Funding for Battery Early Life Prediction Research
SRSL has received research funding from the Iowa Energy Center, administrated by the Economic Development Authority (IEDA), for a collaborative project with Alliant Energy, SunCrate Energy, and Iowa Lakes Community College. This project is titled “Predicting Battery Lifetime with Early-Life Data for Grid Applications.” This two-year project ($280K in total) will develop a new software tool that harnesses the power of machine learning to accelerate the evaluation of battery lifetime in grid applications. The ISU Co-PIs are Dr. Anne Kimber (ECpE), Dr. Zhaoyu Wang (ECpE), and Dr. Gül E. Kremer (IMSE).
Dr. Hu Gave Keynote Speech at UQOP 2020
On November 16th, 2020, Dr. Hu gave a keynote speech at the International Conference on Uncertainty Quantification & Optimisation (UQOP 2020) held as a virtual event. The title of his talk is “Engineering Design under Uncertainty and Probabilistic Failure Prognostics – Methods, Progress, and Challenges.” This talk focused on addressing the uncertainty issues in the reliability-based design of an automotive component and the remaining useful life prediction of lithium-ion batteries.
Nazli and Hao Shared Learnings from Grace Internships
Nazli and Hao completed their internships at Grace Technologies. Their intern work focused on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Predictive Maintenance of Industrial Equipment. Here is an article on the Grace HumpDay Blog where Nazli and Hao reflected on their learnings from their internship experiences: https://www.graceport.com/blog/grace-internships-2020.
New Funding for Design for Reman Research
SRSL is part of two R&D projects, funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) through the REMADE Institute, to study and advance design for sustainability (REMADE Announcement). One project is titled “Quantification of Financial and Environmental Benefits Tradeoffs in Multi-Generational Product Family Development Considering Re-X Performances,” led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the other project is titled “Design Iteration Tool to Sustain Remanufacturability,” led by Iowa State University. Both projects are two years in duration and represent efforts to support and facilitate university-industry collaboration.
Meng Passed Ph.D. Defense
Meng passed his Ph.D. final oral exam. He will start working as a Data Scientist at National Oilwell Varco. Big congrats to Dr. Li!