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Students:
ENS William Jarrett, Research Assistant, Weapons, Robotics, and Control Engineering Dept.
MIDN 1/C John McCarthy, Robotics and Control Engineering, 10th Company
MIDN 1/C Jack Thomas, Robotics and Control Engineering (Honors), 29th Company
MIDN 1/C Enzo Kim, Physics, 22nd Company
MIDN 1/C Fjordia Akhtar, Electrical Engineering, 19th Company
MIDN 1/C Toby Kim, Electrical Engineering, 21st Company
Professors:
Prof. Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic, Weapons, Robotics, and Control Engineering Dept.
Prof. Joel Esposito, Weapons, Robotics, and Control Engineering Dept.
Assoc. Prof. Charles Nelson, Electrical Engineering Dept.
Prof. Reza Malek-Madani, Mathematics Dept.
Lab Group Highlights
Collaboration with NRL Washington, D.C. and NAVAIR
Our work is of significant interest to the military, which lends itself to great collaboration with outside research groups. On 01 SEP 22, we were fortunate to have researchers from NRL, Washington D.C., NAVAIR, and St. Mary's College come to tour our laboratory spaces and participate in presentations of research.
Dr. Matt Hart from NRL, Washington D.C. presents his work on the scattering of light carrying OAM
01SEP22_Slides.pptxTutorial for Machine Learning and OAM-based Communication System
Access and download our data! As part of an ongoing project, Prof. Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic (WRCE Dept.), Prof. Joel Esposito (WRCE Dept.) and Prof. Charles Nelson (EE Dept.) are working on a tutorial for creating and researching your own machine learning and OAM beam-based communication system. We have provided our datasets for public access to assist with this - linked here!
Our Trident Scholars and Recent Grads
ENS William Jarrett (USNA '22) and ENS Kyle Jung (USNA '22) both successfully completed their Trident Scholar Projects. ENS Jarrett was the recipient of the Class of 1979 Prize for the best overall Trident Scholar Project!
ENS William Jarrett alongside his advisors, Prof. Joel Esposito (left) and Prof. Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic (right)
ENS Kyle Jung alongside his advisors, Prof. Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic (left) and Prof. Reza Malek-Madani (right)
ENS Kyle Jung will continue his studies at Brown University, completing the course of study for a Master's in Computational Science and Engineering as a Draper Labs Scholar. He will then join the Fleet as a Submarine Warfare Officer!
ENS Will Jarrett will continue his studies at Stanford University, earning his Master's in Electrical Engineering as a Knight-Hennessey Scholar. He too will join the Fleet as a Submarine Warfare Officer following his time at Stanford!
Collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Abbie Watnik, Dr. Peter Judd, and the rest of the NRL team have graciously lent us their Rayleigh-Benard tank for continued collaboration and research during the 2022-2023 academic year. This tank is located in-house at the United States Naval Academy, and allows for the generation and control of Rayleigh-Benard turbulence for experimentation. This tank will be used in 5 senior undergraduate capstone projects, and will lend itself to the submission of several journal papers! For more information on this, click the button below!
Rayleigh-Benard Tank, located in Rickover Hall, United States Naval Academy
Project Introduction
This project seeks to develop a better communication system through research into all aspects of the system. The picture below provides the basic architecture of the system. A laser beam is given Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM), creating an alphabet of symbols that carry information. These beams are propagated through the maritime environment, where they experience attenuation due to absorption and scattering and distortion due to optical turbulence. The signals strike the receiver, where they are captured, saved, and decoded using a type of machine learning network, known as a Convolutional Neural Network. This creates a wide variety of topics for research, in fields that include optical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, mathematics, and computer science.
Click the buttons below to find out more background information!
Theoretical beam images
Actual beam images
Motivation for Maritime Laser Communication
Unmanned Underwater Vehicle
With an evolving, fast-paced world, there is an increasing need for high bandwidth underwater wireless data transmission for military operations, tactical surveillance, pollution monitoring, oil rig control, offshore explorations, environmental monitoring, and oceanography. The limited capacity of wired based communication, makes wireless communication the forefront of research development. The two most typical forms of underwater wireless communication are acoustic and radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic waves. However, both acoustic and RF communication are limited in their bandwidth due to the frequency of the carrier. This has led to research and development of underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) to provide high bandwidth wireless communication, which uses optical EM waves to transmit information. Optical waves benefit from a greater bandwidth than both acoustic waves and RF waves, as the waves propagate with a higher frequency, transmitting data in the gigabits per second (Gbps) region.
Summer Training Opportunities
Through our collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., Prof. Avramov-Zamurovic facilitates the internship of one (1) capable student per summer to work under professional engineers and researchers in D.C. in the Optical Sciences Division. This experience is invaluable for gaining laboratory confidence and experience, building relationships with field experts, and expanding one's understanding of the field of Applied Optics.
Ideas for Future Research Projects
Finding optimal relationship between number of network training images, and the strength of the optical turbulence and size of the symbol alphabet (optics, fluid dynamics, computer science / machine learning)
Investigating the impact of Rayleigh-Benard turbulence on the vortex of light carrying orbital angular momentum (optics, physics, fluid dynamics)
Measuring and characterizing the fluid flow of our in-house Rayleigh-Benard turbulence tank
Interested in becoming involved? Contact Prof. Avramov-Zamurovic (avramov@usna.edu) or any of the involved students!
For credit work is general done as one of the following:
Independent Research - 3 credits / semester, repeatable
Capstone Project - 3 credits / semester, one-two semesters
Honors Capstone Project - 3 credits / semester, two semesters
Bowman Scholar Research Project - 6 credits / semester, two semesters
Trident Scholar Research Project - 12 credits / semester, two semesters
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