Month: June 2015

Technion Students placed second in the prestigious Student Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS) international Competition

The Technion team, made up of students from the faculties of aerospace and electrical engineering, was awarded second place in a prestigious international competition held in Maryland, USA.

A student team from the Technion, under the supervision of Dror Artzi, Amit Aides and Itai Orr, won second place (out of 55 teams) in a prestigious competition held by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI), which took place last weekend in Maryland, USA. The international Student Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS) Competition attracts students from universities all over the world, yet most of the competitors are from the US.

The Technion team, which included students from the faculties of aerospace and electrical engineering, were among the 32 teams that made it to the flight course round of the competition and ultimately won second place. They developed two airborne systems that performed autonomous flight, target identification, aerial cargo delivery and obstacle avoidance, all while maintaining communication links to the ground station. Each aircraft was installed with advanced systems including a stabilized camera, an airborne computer image processing and communication system for controlling, monitoring and transferring images.

The competing teams were allotted 20 minutes to deploy their systems, including setting up their ground station. The team’s UAV flew for 26 minutes, during which time it performed the following tasks – autonomous navigation, search area coverage, identification of ground targets, image classification and identification of an off-axis target. All this, while performing autonomous flight and data transmission in real time to the ground station. In addition, the Technion was the only team to autonomously avoid obstacles placed in the flight zone.

The competition also demanded performing a Flight Readiness Review, and in this category the team received many compliments from the judges. For writing the engineering document (Journal Paper) the team earned the highest points and ranked in first place.

In the nine months leading up to the competition, the students on the team carried out trials in systems development including aircraft development, complex experiments and analysis, operating a whole system based on Crew Resource Management (CRM) and operational deployment performance. “We received help and support from several companies and organizations,” said Dror Artzi, “Including RAFAEL, Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems, KAL-KAR Ein Carmel, DHL, IntelliTECH, Intel, YeshGo Electronics, Technion’s Department of Electrical Engineering: particularly its Ollendorff Center and Vision and Image Science Lab (VISL), the Aerospace Faculty, and the Technion at large. The team members demonstrated at the competition the high academic standards of Technion’s future graduates, and presented anew Israel’s exceptional capabilities in developing integrated systems and unmanned aerial vehicles.”

“This has been an incredible experience for us, we feel well rewarded for all the hard work that was invested in this project. The students worked very well together all year and their achievements here is the product of their efforts. Their impressive achievements in the flight and system operation portion of the competition can be linked to the learning process and engineering knowledge they acquired throughout the year.”

Student team members:

Sagiv Yaari, Niv Bahar, Gal Dalali, Haya Rosengard, Eliran Eyal, Shaya Nagar, Yevgeni Gutnik, Dudu Markovich, Ilia Lesovoy, Avishay Hasidof, Lilach Mazor, Havay Gerti, Ori Ashur, Ori Avraham, Shlomi Bouscher, Dima Malkis and Michael Kolokov.

Professor Daniel Rittel, from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Technion, Head of the Materials Mechanics Center, and Deputy Senior Vice President, was awarded the prestigious 2015 Angiola Gili è Cataldo Agostinelli international prize, by the Academy of Sciences of Torino (Italy) in the Applied and Theoretical Mechanics category.

According to the citation of the prize,  “Prof. Rittel has performed pioneering research in the mechanics of materials, with particular focus on thermomechanical coupling in solids. His work has demonstrated that the energy stored in the material is not only due to thermodynamic effects, but also due to changes in the microstructure identified as dynamic recrystallization. His research has also led to a paradigm shift in the modeling of the (dynamic shear) localization phenomena, combining Materials Science, and Solid Mechanics through numerical simulations.”

Practical aspects of Prof. Rittel’s work concern dynamic loading situations such as ballistic impact, high speed machining, and concepts of relevance to fault motion during earthquakes.

A recent Technion study describes a novel optogenetic approach for pacing and resynchronizing the heart in case of heart rhythm disorder.

Technion researchers have developed a new approach for the treatment of abnormal heart rhythms by using a light based therapy. This technology has been reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology. The study was conducted at the laboratory of Professor Lior Gepstein from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion. Professor Gepstein is the director of the Department of Cardiology at Rambam Health Care Campus.

Abnormalities in the function of the heart’s pacemaker cells or electrical conduction system can lead to an abnormally slow heart rate, or lead to a decrease in the hearts’ pumping efficiency by delaying the transmission of electrical signals. In either case, the underlying electrical disease can result in negative and serious consequences for patients including weakness, dizziness, fainting, worsening heart failure symptoms and even the risk of death.

The conventional medical treatment used today relies on the implantation of an electronic pacemaker, which corrects the dysfunction of the natural pacemaker mechanism using electrodes inserted into various areas of the heart. Electronic pacemakers however have many limitations including the risk of infection and the need for repeated invasive surgical procedures for implantation, manipulation, and battery replacements. Furthermore, clinicians are limited by the number and locations of the pacing wires used, and patients are at risk for a decline in heart function since pacemakers cannot re-create the normal electrical activation pattern of the heart. Perhaps most importantly, children who require pacemakers quickly outgrow their pacemaker wires and thus require repeated and invasive interventions over time.

In light of these disadvantages, many researchers are working on developing biological alternatives to the electronic pacemaker. This article describes a study that examines the use of the optogenetic approach for the treatment of abnormal heart rhythms. The study was conducted by Dr. Udi Nussinovitch as part of his PhD work in Professor Gepstein’s laboratory at the Technion. Dr. Nussinovitch is currently an intern at the Department of Internal Medicine at Rambam.

The optogenetic technology employed allowed researchers to selectively activate light-sensitive proteins (such as the ion-channel ChR2, first identified in algae), which were overexpressed in excitable cells (such as nerve or muscle cells), in an attempt to modulate (either augment or suppress) their electrical activity. Optogenetics has become an important tool in brain research and the current study is the first to translate this important innovation to pace and resynchronize the heartbeat.

In the study, conducted in rats, the researchers first directed a beam of blue light at an area in the heart where the light-sensitive genes were delivered. This resulted in effective pacing of the heart at different rates as dictated by the frequency of the blue light flashes applied. Subsequently, a more advanced experiment was conducted, in which various locations in the rat hearts expressing ChR2 were activated simultaneously by light, resulting in improved synchronization of the contractions of the ventricles.

Professor Gepstein stresses that this is a preliminary study, and that “in order to translate the aforementioned approach to the clinical arena, we must overcome some significant hurdles. We must improve the penetration of light through the tissues, ensure continuous expression of the protein in the heart for many years, and develop a unique pacing device that will provide the necessary illumination. But despite all of this, the results of the study demonstrate the unique potential of optogenetics for both cardiac pacing (as an alternative to electronic pacemakers) and resynchronization (for the treatment of heart failure with ventricular dys-synchrony) therapies.”

Two teams tied in first place at the 2015 Techno Brain ‘boating’ competition, which was held at a special 72-square-meter pool erected in the heart of the Technion campus.

Much creative genius was demonstrated by Technion students, and great fun was had by all, at yesterday’s annual “Dr. Bob’s TechnoBrain Competition”, sponsored by Robert J. Shillman, in memory of Neev-ya Durban.

Twelve teams competed in the 2015 Techno Brain competition, held on Wednesday, June 17. The challenge: race elastic-band powered boats. This year’s competition, entitled “Gumpool 2015 Race” was held in the spirit of “green energy.” Competitors were given a complex engineering challenge to tackle: design elastic-band powered boats (built in advance) to travel a distance of eight meters, anchor by means of a magnet, and fire a jet of water into a funnel from a distance of three meters – all this is in the shortest possible time and with smallest number of rubber bands.

“In honor of the 13th annual competition, a special 72-square-meter pool was erected in the heart of the Technion campus. The 13 teams that competed on Wednesday were those that had advanced to the final round, from among the 46 teams that entered the competition,” explained Ben Grotzke who organized the race on behalf of the Technion’s Student Association (ASAT). “The provisions set out in the rules of the competition called for high-level engineering design standards, and I am very proud of the creativity demonstrated by the teams in the planning and execution of their boat models.”

At the end of this unique and truly captivating race, the judges awarded after much deliberation the first place title to two teams, who will each receive a cash prize for NIS 7,500.

The winning teams:

The “Smiley” team, whose members included Marina Minkin from the Faculty of Computer Science, Vasily Vitchevsky from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Michael Pozavski from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, tied for first place. “We used a vane to push the water back, putting to use Newton’s third law of motion that states that when you push against something (in this case the water) it (the water) pushes back on you (the boat) with an equal and opposite force,” explained Fozbski. “In order to reduce aerodynamic drag (created by the friction of flowing water) during the race, we built a mechanism that lowers the squirting pump into the water towards the end.”

Members of the other team tied in first place are Hila Shmuel, Itay Mangel and Aviv Nachmias from the Faculty of Physics, who succeeded in ‘cracking the speed code.’ “The propeller is positioned directly on the rubber band and thereby is spared from friction,” Said Mangel, “and its location on the front of the boat causes the boat to rise slightly, which also lowers the level of friction with the water.” Shmuel, who is pursuing a combined mathematics and physics degree   through the Technion’s Excellence Program, said that it was a great experience indeed. “It was an opportunity to use out hands and minds together and to understand the importance of more and more experiments.”

In third place came the team of Yair Garfunkel and his girlfriend Or Oron, both from Misgav (a community of settlements from the Galilee region); he’s studying in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and she’s a graduate of Wizo (The Neri Bloomfield School of Design), with a degree in visual communications. The pair spent nearly two months working on this project. Oron admitted that, “My degree didn’t make me the lead on design; we planned the entire project together, both in the planning and execution.” They used sewer pipes strapped to the sides of the boat to keep it afloat, a big red (laser cut) plastic propeller, and a white cone. “As a matter of fact, this was also supposed to be able to shoot confetti, but this feature didn’t work…,” she added.

The teams represented an array of demographic profiles and displayed an impressive range of technological skill. A team of graduate students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering sailed their boat using a smartphone, and 82-year-old Ishai Zimerman of Kibbutz Ein Harod and his son-in-law Roni Atzili, who won last year’s competition, entered the race with their boat nicknamed ‘Endurance’ after the legendary sailing vessel that joined the Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914.

The TechnoBrain competition is being held in memory of its conceiver and founder, the late Neev-Ya Durban. Neev-Ya, a student and outstanding Aerospace Engineering graduate of the Technion, was an IDF Air Force officer when he was murdered by a car thief on a quiet street in Tel Aviv on March 8th, 2003.

The competition and the prizes are sponsored by Dr. Robert Shillman (whom everyone knows as Dr. Bob), who participated in graduate courses at the Technion. This year’s judging panel included Prof. Benny Natan, Assoc. Prof. Gil Iosilevskii and Prof. David Durban (Neev-Ya’s father), all from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the Technion.

At the end of the event, Prof. Durban commented that competition is the essence of engineering, as it teaches students to plan for the unknown.

 

Photo Credits: Shiatzo Photography Services, The Spokesperson’s Office

 

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This Wednesday (June 17) at 12:30, in the heart of the Technion campus, the Technion will host the “Gumpool 2015 race”

This year the race is being held in the spirit of “green energy”: elastic-band powered boats, built in advance by the competitors, will be required to travel a distance of eight meters, anchor by means of a magnet and fire a jet of water into a funnel from a distance of three meters – all this is in the shortest possible time.

In honor of the 13th annual competition, a special 72-square-meter pool is being built at the Technion. The 14 teams competing on Wednesday have advanced to the final round, from among the 46 teams that entered the competition. This year’s teams include: Technion students and alumni; high school students from Baka al-Garabiya and the team that won the race last year – 82-year-old Ishai Zimerman of Kibbutz Ein Harod and his son and son-in-law.

The winners of the race will be awarded prizes of NIS 10,000, NIS 5,000 and NIS 3,000.

The TechnoBrain competition is being held in memory of its conceiver and founder, the late Neev-ya Durban.
Neev-ya, a student and outstanding graduate of the Technion, was an IDF officer when he was murdered by a car thief on a quiet street in Tel Aviv on March 8th , 2003.

The competition and the prizes are sponsored by Dr. Robert Shillman (whom everyone knows as Dr. Bob), who participated in graduate courses at the Technion.

TechnoBrain Website 
Facebook Event Page

Join us for live streaming of the Honorary Doctorate Ceremony in Haifa at the Technion Board of Governors 2015.

Streaming on 15/06/15 will begin at 8:00 pm local time.

Responding on behalf of recipients: Prof. Michael Levitt.

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology salutes its 2015 Honorary Doctors: Prof. Michael Levitt; Prof. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski; Prof. Arieh Warshel; Prof. Charles Weissmann; Mrs. Sandy Hittman – USA; Mr. Joel Rothman; Mr. Sanford I. Weill.

Technion Salutes its Honorary Fellows of 2015! Dr. Qanta Ahmed; Mr. Harry J.F. Bloomfield; Dr. Amit Goffer; Mr. Robert Hanisee; Mr. Avi Kerbs; Ms. Rebecca Boukhris; Ms. Sonia Marschak; Mr. Allen Prince.

 

Transformational Gift from Visionary Leader of Digital Age for theTechnion Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi – a seminal figure in today’s digital society – has announced a gift of $50 million to secure and enhance the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s leadership position in electrical and computer engineering in Israel and globally.

This transformational gift will be recognized by the Technion through the naming of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The announcement was made on June 13, during the Technion Board of Governors meeting in Haifa, Israel.

“I am extremely proud to have my name associated with the Technion, Israel’s leading science and technology university, and one of the top institutions of its kind in the world,” Dr. Viterbi said. “Technion electrical engineering graduates are in large part responsible for creating and sustaining Israel’s high-tech industry, which has been essential for Israel’s economic success.”

Ranked among the world’s top 10 electrical engineering departments, the Technion Faculty of Electrical Engineering has been instrumental in advancing Israel’s tech industry and transforming the country into the “Start-up Nation.” In the early 1970s, the Faculty was the driving force in developing infrastructure and know-how in microelectronics, and the creation of electronic components that turned out to be crucial for Israel’s security and economic growth in the tech sector. Since then, it has paved the way for Israeli computer engineering, communications, microelectronics, optoelectronics, nanotechnology, and quantum technology.

Over the last 20 years, some 1600 companies were founded and/or are being managed by Technion alumni; a stunning 35% were graduates of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

The gift from Dr. Viterbi will enable the Technion to retain and attract outstanding faculty and electrical engineering graduate students, and to upgrade the current teaching and research infrastructure.  By helping bring the ratio of undergraduate students to faculty members in line with those at top American universities, this gift will play a critical role in preserving and enhancing the department’s global competitiveness.

“We are deeply grateful to Andrew Viterbi. His and his beloved late wife Erna’s longstanding involvement with the Technion and his understanding of the vital impact of electrical engineering on the state of Israel, will help the Technion recruit the best and brightest students and faculty members,” said Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie.

“This is a spectacular point in the growth and development of the Technion,” said Jeff Richard, Executive Vice President of the American Technion Society. “This gift will enable the Technion to maintain its place at the forefront of electrical engineering and its wide-ranging applications in industries ranging from medical devices to advanced computing.”

Dr. Viterbi is the creator of the Viterbi Algorithm, a mathematical formula used in many of today’s mobile devices. The Viterbi Algorithm allows rapid and accurate decoding of a plethora of overlapping signals, helping to eliminate signal interference. The mathematical formula is used in all four international standards for digital cellular telephones, as well as in data terminals, digital satellite broadcast receivers and deep space telemetry. Other applications include voice recognition programs and DNA analysis.

Dr. Viterbi’s roots at the Technion date back to 1967, when he gave a series of lectures there while on sabbatical from the University of California, Los Angeles.  Those roots have since grown so strong that Dr. Viterbi’s name is as familiar to Technion engineering students today, as it was nearly 50 years ago.  In 2000, he was named a Technion Distinguished Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering.

Together with his late wife, Erna Finci Viterbi, he has a long history of support for the university and Israel.  He is a Guardian, a designation reserved for those who have reached the highest level of support of the Technion. The Viterbis’ gifts have included the Andrew J. and Erna F. Viterbi Chair in Information Systems/Computer Science, held by Prof. Oded Shmueli, and the Andrew and Erna Finci Viterbi Center for Advanced Studies in Computer Technology and the Andrew and Erna Finci Viterbi Fellowship Program.

“Andrew Viterbi is more than a Distinguished Visiting Professor in our Faculty. He is a true pioneer in the field of electrical and computer engineering, whose algorithm, as well as many other pace-setting contributions, provide the basis for much of the communication and information technologies being developed today. We are extremely proud to be part of the Faculty that will bear his name,” said Distinguished Professor Jacob Ziv, who together with Professor Avraham Lempel created the Ziv-Lempel compression algorithm that contributed significantly in making the Internet a global communications medium.

Dr. Viterbi received a Technion Honorary Doctorate in 2000, and the Albert Einstein Award (the American Technion Society’s highest award) in 1993. He is also a member of the Technion Board of Governors, and has been actively involved with the American Technion Society at the national, regional and local levels.

As the co-founder of Qualcomm Corporation, Dr. Viterbi has received numerous awards for his contributions to communications theory and its industrial applications, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the Marconi International Fellowship Award and the IEEE’s Shannon Award and Lecture, considered the highest honor in communication technology. In 2001, Dr. Viterbi, who was born in Italy, was named a “Grande Ufficiale della Republica” by the President of Italy. He was recognized by former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2008, with the National Medal of Science for developing “the ‘Viterbi Algorithm’, and for his contributions to Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technology that transformed the theory and practice of digital communications.”

“It is a great honor to have Professor Viterbi’s name associated with our Faculty,” said Professor Ariel Orda, Electrical Engineering Dean. “It is a rare combination for a Faculty to be affiliated with the name of a scientific and technological giant while teaching his scientific contributions in advanced courses of its curriculum. Professor Viterbi and his wife, the late Erna Finci Viterbi, have been our dear friends and devoted supporters for many years. This extraordinary gift from Professor Viterbi ensures our position as a global center of academic excellence, enabling us to fulfill our vital role in the security and prosperity of the State of Israel. Moreover, this gift paves the way to new horizons and higher attainable levels of scientific and technological achievements.”

Andrew Viterbi is an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California. His was one of the first doctorates in electrical engineering granted by USC (’62).  In 2004, he and his late wife, Erna Finci Viterbi, provided the naming gift for USC’s Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering. Other gifts to the university include the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Chair in Communications, the Andrew J. and Erna Finci Viterbi Executive Director Chair at the USC Shoah Foundation, and various scholarships in engineering and genocide studies.

Each year, the worldwide Technion family gathers in Haifa to deliberate, celebrate and share in the great discussion about science, technology, innovation, education and the future of our institution, nation and world. The Technion warmly welcomes our devoted governors and friends, and thanks them for their unwavering support.

Haifa (Israel) – Technion – Israel Institute of Technology announced today that it will receive Phase II funding through Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that enables individuals worldwide to test bold ideas to address persistent health and development challenges. Professor Hossam Haick will continue to pursue an innovative global health research project, titled “Self-Administered Adhesive Patch for Detection of Tuberculosis”

“In regions where poverty became a master, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations is an indispensable source to efficiently harness the wisdom of experts and the insight of the pertinent global health and development challenges. With the support of the Gate’s Foundation, we are developing an array of rapid, accurate, and affordable tool that shall contribute for increasing the survival rate of Tuberculosis patients, and, also, in arresting the disease transmission. Ultimately, we hope these advances could contribute for the democratization of health globally.” Said Prof. Haick

In 2012, Prof. Hossam Haick was awarded a Phase I grant for BMGF program.  Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) Phase I recognizes individuals worldwide who are taking innovative approaches to some of the world’s toughest and persistent global health and development challenges.  GCE invests in the early stages of bold ideas that have real potential to solve the problems people in the developing world face every day.  Phase II recognizes those ideas that have made significant progress toward implementation.

Prof. Hossam Haick’s project is one of the Phase II Grand Challenges Explorations grants announced today.

More than two billion people are estimated to be infected with M. tuberculosis (TB), from which 10% progress to active tuberculosis during lifetime. About 95% of TB cases occur in developing countries, where individuals live on $1 per day. The ultimate goal of the present project is the development of a stand-alone TB test consisting of adhesive patch that allows immediate diagnosis of TB from skin samples within 2-5 min at much lower costs and greater affordability than the current approaches. The novel TB sensing patch is designated for application on the chest of the patient, either in the clinic or by the patient at home, and will be suitable for children as well. The possibility of performing the test at home by the patient will allow the patient to participate actively in the prevention and detection of TB by continuous monitoring of at-risk populations such as health workers, family members of TB patients, smokers, HIV-carriers, etc.  This 2-5 minute examination results in either a GREEN LIGHT when the user is healthy (i.e., has no TB) or RED LIGHT when active TB is present.

The development of rapid, accurate, and affordable sensing patches for diagnosis of “active TB pulmonary disease vs. non-TB pulmonary disease and latent TB” will contribute for increasing the survival rate of TB patients, and, also, in arresting the disease transmission. Successful completion of all of these short-term and long-term goals will provide TB sensing patch that could be used at resource-poor central reference laboratories, hospital and clinic laboratories, and/or at the point-of-care, thus helping to increase the TB screening and saving at least 400,000 lives every year.