Centers, Labs and the Interdisciplinary Approach

Michigan Engineering is the home of two National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers (ERCs). These centers are the NSF's flagship research sites, interdisciplinary units that enable students, faculty and industry to collaborate in the pursuit of complex engineered systems. At the same time, this collaboration supplements education, expanding students' understanding of technological innovation. There are only 20 ERCs in the country; Michigan Engineering hosts two of them.

In 2000, the University became the site of the nation's first ERC for Wireless Integrated Microsystems (ERC/WIMS). The ERC for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (ERC/RMS), formed in 1996, is the largest organized collaborative effort devoted to basic research in manufacturing in the United States. The presence of these ERCs is a strong statement about the College's caliber of research across disciplines. 

ERC/WIMS 
ERC/RMS
CUOS(Center for Ultrafast Optical Science)
Automotive Research Center
Center for Ergonomics
Walter E. Lay Automotive Laboratory
General Motors Collaborative Laboratories
Functional Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network
Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory
Solid State Electronics  Lab
Space Physics Research Laboratory

Research at ERC/WIMS focuses on the development of low-cost, integrated microsystems with far-ranging applications for industry, healthcare and the environment. WIMS will someday control "smart vehicles" on "intelligent highways," operate highly complex manufacturing tools, monitor the quality of air and water, manage military defense systems, and control implanted devices to improve healthcare. WIMS will save lives, create jobs, bolster the economy and facilitate developments that are currently unimaginable.
 
Of the numerous ongoing ERC/WIMS programs, one involves implantable WIMS technologies that treat epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders. Another program is developing a battery-powered, wristwatch-sized, integrated environmental monitoring system capable of rapid multi-gas analysis. This device could have profound importance in a world where safety and security are becoming increasingly tenuous.

The Center also develops specialized engineering courses, internships and summer training and outreach programs for teachers and students, and distance-learning opportunities for professionals. 

ERC/RMS

The primary purpose of the ERC/RMS is to develop a new type of factory that contains a reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS), a development that will give factories the ability to "evolve" -- efficiently, quickly and at low cost -- as market and manufacturing demands change. 

Traditional factories are expensive to build and, in many cases, created to manufacture only one product. As a result, companies must build the same product for many years to recoup their investmentÊ-- despite the fact that demand for the product might have changed and sales are suffering. However, factories with RMS will be able to respond quickly to design new production systems, sensors, controls and machining equipment. (See "World's First Reconfigurable Machine Tool" on page 25.)

CUOS

The Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) -- formerly a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center until the conclusion of its grant -- performs multidisciplinary laser research and develops optical equipment and techniques to generate, manipulate and detect ultrashort and ultrahigh peak-power light pulses.

These studies yield information that's highly useful for researchers in fields such as optical communication, materials science with micromachining, laser deposition, high-energy physics, astrophysics, cosmology, precision radiography and surgery -- to name just a few. More specifically, research at CUOS has led to numerous developments such as:  

• A bladeless scalpel that reduces the complexity of LASIK surgery and helps eliminate complications (See "Bladeless Scalpel" )
• The ability to create micro-sized drainage ducts in the eye to treat glaucoma patients
• The fastest (highest bandwidth) oscilloscope ever created
• The highest laser intensities ever produced
• The ability to ablate materials and drill holes with sub-micrometer precision

Automotive Research Center

The Automotive Research Center (ARC) is a unique research partnership founded in 1994 to advance state-of-the-art modeling and simulation of military and civilian vehicles, while providing educational opportunities and a cooperative link among the military, academia and the automotive industry. The ARC:

• Is headquartered at the University of Michigan and includes seven partner schools
• Has been funded by participating companies and the U.S. Army through it
• National Automotive Center (NAC) at the Research, Development & Engineering Command
• Covers a broad spectrum of automotive topics that impact vehicle propulsion, advanced structures, control strategies for optimal energy usage and safety, mobility of vehicles and robotics, and human centered design
• Conducts work that aims to dramatically reduce fuel consumption, a critical military and civilian issue, while maintaining or improving mobility, handling and safety
• Investigates advanced internal combustion engines, alternative hybrid propulsion systems and fuel cells, in combination with ultra lightweight structures with advanced materials, and techniques that maximize the benefits of these advancements

The Center for Ergonomics

The University of Michigan Center for Ergonomics is a hub for research, education and information related to biomechanical modeling, musculoskeletal disorders associated with mechanisms in the workplace, and the analysis and design of controls for those disorders. 

The Center employs methods such as human motion simulation, in which researchers use a 3D video motion system to monitor people moving within a vehicle. The mass of data results in a human motion simulator that allows designers to visualize people moving within "virtual vehicles" and "virtual workspaces" rather than construct expensive prototypes that have a limited lifespan.

The results of these studies touch people around the world, minute by minute -- in the grip of a power tool, the contour of a chair, the resistance of a key on a computer keyboard, and in countless other ways that aren't immediately recognizable.

Walter E. Lay Automotive Laboratory

True to its namesake, former Mechanical Engineering professor Walter E. Lay (BSE ME '15), the Lay Automotive Lab has supported education and research since the early 1900s. Today, the Lab's research interests are wide-ranging but generally associated with:

• Engine friction
• Combustion
• Emissions control
• Fuel efficiency
• Vehicular electronics design
• Vehicle aerodynamics

Michigan Engineering's proximity to Detroit -- the heart of the nation's auto industry -- has made the Lay Automotive Lab a vital contributor to industry.

General Motors Collaborative Research Laboratories

General Motors supports two Collaborative Research Laboratories (CRLs) in a long-term, strategic relationship between GM Research & Development Operations and the College of Engineering. These labs focus on Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing and Engine Systems Research. 

The GMCRL's work is fundamental to GM's business, critical to its long-term competitiveness and supportive of the educational and intellectual pursuits of Michigan Engineering students and faculty. 

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Laboratory

Whereas the medical community has used magnetic resonance imaging for more than 15 years to generate exquisite images of soft tissue in the human body, researchers in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) watch and study the human brain as it works. That is, they watch areas of the brain activate in response to touch, sight, sound or the movement of a subject's fingers. 

The fMRI Laboratory has become an integral part of the worldwide research and analysis that take science a step closer to the juncture of the physical and non-physical aspects of the brain -- anatomy and thought, physiology and emotion. The applications of fMRI are many -- and still unfolding. "Brain mapping,Ó for example, is useful to surgeons who need to excise damaged brain matter yet avoid cutting tissue that controls language and sight.

NASA BioScience and Engineering Institute

The NASA BioScience and Engineering Institute (NBEI) is a new hub for biomedical researchers involved in the development of technology that monitors and counteracts the effects of spaceflight on the human body. The Institute's investigators work in four major areas:

• Tissue bioscience and engineering
• Transport phenomena in biology and microfluidic devices
• Molecular biophysics and bioengineering
• BioMEMS and biomaterials

These studies, already a mainstay of Michigan Engineering laboratories, take on a new character and greater complexity in NBEI labs due to the addition of factors that exist outside the Earth's atmosphere -- weightlessness, for example.

More than 40 top universities submitted 23 proposals in a national competition to house the Institute. 

National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network

In January 2004, the University of Michigan and 12 other universities came together under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to form the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN). This Network is an integrated, nationwide system of facilities that supports research and education in nanoscale science, engineering and technology. The collective resources -- available to all qualified users, nationwide -- create the world's largest, most comprehensive and accessible nanotechnology laboratory.

The NSF assembled NNIN to:

• Provide ready access to state-of-the-art tools and instruments
• Implement an innovative educational facility that will impact a broad range of users -- from professionals through K-12
• Initiate outreach efforts to non-traditional users, underrepresented groups, and the wider technical community and public
• Develop the intellectual and institutional capacity needed to examine and address societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology 

Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory

Operated by the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, the Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory (MHL) is the envy of many collegiate, professional and governmental units that design and build boats. The centerpiece is a tow tank, built in 1904 and used over the years to study not only ships' hulls but a host of nautical mysteries -- how fish behave in coastal waters, how drowning victims drift and where to look for them (a boon to police), and how icebergs behave in the waters around Alaska, to name just a few unusual projects. Three recent television documentaries featured the tank -- one on the History Channel and two on the Discovery Channel.

The MHL houses a number of other research facilities:

• A low-turbulence free-surface water channel
• A gravity-capillary water wave tank
• A propeller tunnel for student use
• A two-dimensional gravity wave tank

Solid State Electronics Lab

Established with the assistance of the State of Michigan, the College of Engineering's Solid State Electronics Laboratory facilitates students, faculty, government and industry in their investigations of solid-state electronics. Over the years, the studies have explored areas such as:

• Integrated sensors
• Automated semiconductor manufacturing
• Ultra-high-speed microwave and millimeter-wave devices
• Opto-electronic devices
• Compound semiconductor and silicon microelectronic, micromachined devices
• Microsystems
• Microfabrication technologies
• Semiconductor process control and manufacturing

Space Physics Research Laboratory

The Space Physics Research Laboratory (SPRL) dates to the mid-1940s, when Professor William G. Dow of the University of Michigan's Department of Electrical Engineering needed a location to accommodate scientists using captured V2 rockets to study rocketry and the Earth's upper atmosphere. Since then, the SPRL has sent more than 35 scientific instruments into space and, through them, has probed Mars' secrets, pierced the atmosphere of Jupiter and explored Earth's upper atmosphere.

The primary thrust of SPRL investigation is atmospheric chemistry and physics, planetary atmospheres and remote sensing of the Earth.