Spring 2007 Projects

Summaries of each project are below.

• Global Real-time Media Distribution
• Biosuit
• Neuromorphically Controlled Bipedal Droids
• Novel Trochar for Scarless Surgery
• Nanocrystals for Biological Testing
• Next-Generation Data Transformation Tool
• High-Throughput Dense Wireless Networks
• Tissue Sensing Device
• Portable Power Source

Global Real-time Media Distribution

Contact: Andrew Lippman and Dimitris Vyzovitis

Media distribution on the net is maturing to become competitive with mainstream radio and television, radically changing the industry. However, there are critical technologies needed to make real time distribution scale without incurring astronomical bandwidth and server costs. At present the only feasible approach is to utilize a peer-to-peer architecture, where every receiver acts as a relay contributing bandwidth back into the system. This comes with its own set of hard problems, stemming from network asymmetry and the inherent unreliability of end-user machines.

This project is developing an open platform for globally scalable real-time media distribution. The core technology is VidTorrent, a distributed protocol akin to BitTorrent but designed to work with real-time streams, where one cannot readily delay delivery. We are working towards making the technology ready for end-user deployment, while seeking avenues for comercialization into a viable global business.

Biosuit

Contact: Dava Newman

Forget today's 300-pound bubble space suit. Think about a sleek biosuit that will protect space travelers, enable them to exercise during the six-month journey to Mars, then power walk across the planet's surface. That's the 30-year goal offered by Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor Dava Newman The core technologies, which include a compression skin suit and electromechanical devices, can be realized in the next few years in active orthopedic devices that enable stroke victims to regain mobility. Newman's group has designed an active orthotic device that propels a person walking. The i-Team will focus on shorter term earth applications for this technology.

Neuromorphically Controlled Bipedal Droids

Contact: Steve Massaquoi

Currently available robots require a structured operating environment for highly structured tasks.  However, there is an increasing need for semi-autonomous and autonomous robots that are capable of safely working with humans in open environments with complex time-varying characteristics.  The recent availability of inexpensive motors with high power to weight ratios combined with the dynamic control imposed by neuromimetic computer programs enables such robots to be managed simply, efficiently, and flexibly.

This project proposes to leverage the current advances in robotic navigation and intelligent manipulation to develop an inexpensive, high-performance, reliably stable robot with bipedal locomotion.  The i-Team will explore a robot that is currently being constructed to demonstrate the feasibility of control via simulated spinal cord, brainstem, cerebellar and cerebral function.  Once fully developed, these robots could be valuable for tasks currently performed by humans including: surveillance, search and guidance, the automation of manual labor tasks in open environments and work in mass production.

Novel Trochar for Scarless Surgery

Contact: Christopher Thompson

Traditional flexible endoscopy has been limited to the confines of the gastrointestinal lumen, however, recent developments involving transluminal access to intra-abdominal structures hold the potential to revolutionize flexible endoscopy. Over the last few years various studies have detailed techniques involving intentional luminal breach with endoscopic access to the peritoneal cavity for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Unlike standard surgical approaches which require incisions in the abdominal wall the Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) approach avoids abdominal incisions and may offer specific advantages in select patient populations.

Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard have patented a novel trochar for transluminal access that will provide a sterile environment enabling these procedures to be safely translated to human use. This is in the process of being prototyped. Depending on the evolution of this new field, this device may be critical to procedural success and could be highly utilized.

Nanocrystals for Biological Testing

Contacts: Moungi Bawendi, Jonathan Halpert

Nearly every biotech and pharmaceutical company relies on dyes or fluorescence markers for standard lab test methods. Typically, the byproducts of these reactions are unstable and hard to detect. Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals offer unique emission and absorption properties that make them superior to conventional dyes in terms of product stability and emission spectrum. This technology is also being explored for developing noveloptical devices and materials.

Our project aims to evaluate the market potential of the various applications of nanocrystal technology, and identify the most compelling of these applications. Lastly, we aim take the actions required to access this market.

Next-Generation Data Transformation Tool

Contact: Michael Stonebraker

A fundamental problem for large enterprises revolves around converting data from various representations inside the logic of business units to one common representation in the enterprises central data warehouse. Business analysts subsequently query this warehouse to improve business processes.
While tools do exist to extract data from various locations and transform them into a common format, such exercises are usually complex and expensive. Moreover, todays modern business environment necessitates frequent changes in the data structures of business units. This makes such transformation exercises an ongoing issue. The goal of this project is to create a next-generation data transformation tool to facilitate these conversions.

The core technology is called Morpheus (the Greek god of dreams, who could change his form and appearance) that consists of a transformation tool and a repository that holds a large number of transformations. Morpheus would be used as a browser tool, finding a repository transformation that is "close" to the required one. Then, the transformation tool is used to manipulate the identified starting point in a drag-and-drop fashion quickly and easily into the desired result. 

High-Throughput Dense Wireless Networks

Contact: Dina Katabi

Wireless networks are increasingly key to modern communications, from cellular phones to distributed sensors and emailing from the local coffee shop. Yet, as the number of wireless devices increase, and devices use network connectivity more often, the network is more heavily taxed and overall throughput begins to fall drastically in dense settings. This simple fact of current network design poses a serious threat to hopes of urban Wi-Fi networks and similar emerging applications.

This logjam of data packets can be broken by "opportunistic listening" and "opportunistic coding". Nodes in the wireless network snoop on all communications they hear over the wireless medium, and store the heard packets for a limited interval. The nodes also annotate the packets they send to tell their neighbors which packets they have heard. When a routing node forwards a packet, it uses its knowledge of what its neighbors have heard to perform opportunistic coding; the router node can intelligently select and mix multiple packets and send them in a single transmission. This more efficient delivery allows higher throughput.

Tissue Sensing Device

Contact: Alexander Slocum

Inserting needles for catheter placement into the human body is one of the most common medical procedures performed on millions of people annually in the United States alone—yet accidental misdirection of the needle still occurs in hundreds of thousands of patients, often causing severe complications. The central problem is an inability to distinguish the type of tissue the needle encounters as it is inserted into the body. Potentially devastating complications include venous catheters entering an artery, or an epidural needle penetrating completely through the intended epidural space and puncturing sensitive dural tissue.

A device that mechanically senses when a needle passes from a high-resistance tissue region to a low-resistance region may address these issues. By creating a probe equipped with an appropriate mechanism, the catheter can react to the tissue it encounters and facilitate precise understanding of its progress. This project aims to develop and perform proof-of-concept experiments using prototype devices for sensing tissue and tissue compartments.

Portable Power Source

Contacts: Carol Livermore, Timothy Havel

Nobody questions the need for smaller, more efficient and longer-lasting portable power sources. In the United States alone, the market for batteries grows at six percent annually and is projected to hit $15 billion by 2009. But today's battery technology largely depends on chemical reactions — leading to devices that degrade over time or possibly even malfunction in dangerous “side reactions,” as evidenced by the recent recall of millions of lithium ion batteries that could overheat in laptop computers.

One potential solution to this bottleneck is storing energy in a dense network of ultra-thin, microscopic filaments known as carbon nanotubes. This project focuses on the design and computer modeling of a single nanospring-driven generator and storage device. Detailed computer modeling estimates will determine the amount of energy that can be stored in a nanospring device, and a design and model for a generator and storage device with optimal performance will be created. Ultimately, prototypes may be built.