The unassuming Pacific mole crab, Emerita analoga, is about to make some waves. UC Berkeley researchers have debuted a unique robot inspired by this burrowing crustacean that may someday help evaluate the soil of agricultural sites, collect marine data and study soil and rock conditions at construction sites. In a study published today in Frontiers …
ME Emeritus Professor Ronald Yeung Presented With Distinguished Achievement Award at OTC-2021
ME Emeritus Professor Ronald Yeung was named to receive the OTC 2020 Distinguished Achievement Award. A belated presentation ceremony, due to the pandemic, at NRG Center, Houston, was made on August 15, 2021. Professor Yeung was recognized “for his 45-year career in educating a generation of naval architects and ocean engineers, as well as, his fundamental …
Capstone Project Profile: Optical Communication in Unmanned Vehicles to Revolutionize Underwater Wireless Networking
With current technology, even planets that are light years away had been mapped out with higher resolution than most of the seafloor on Earth. Limited by low bandwidth underwater communication, sonar is the traditional approach for underwater communication. Our team aims to use optical communication to create low cost, high bandwidth means of underwater networking …
ME Professor Emeritus Ronald Yeung to Receive 2020 OTC Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals
ME Professor Emeritus Ronald Yeung has been awarded the 2020 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals. This award recognizes Professor Yeung’s 45-year career in educating a generation of naval architects and ocean engineers, as well as, his fundamental research in ship and offshore hydrodynamics. Over this period, he has supervised 28 doctoral …
The EDG Lab Discovers How to Better Design Skin for Handling Wet and Submerged Objects
Real world environments, such as kitchens, present objects covered in viscous fluids: soap, oil, water, etc. Understanding and designing for slippery and submerged contact, where fluid lubrication is present, is a continuing challenge in the robotics community. Contact area, bending stiffness, and the presence of a viscous fluid affect friction. This work focuses on milliscale …
ME PhD Student Dongchi Yu Wins SNAME-2016 Graduate Paper Honor Prize
ME PhD student in Ocean Engineering, Dongchi Yu, presented a paper at the NorCal-SNAME Professional Meeting March 16, 2016 on his recent research on “Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Wave-Resistance Reduction of Asymmetric Di-Hull Systems by Exploiting Interference Effects”. The study concerns validating a theory that allows the ship designer to rapidly optimize the stagger …
ME Professor Ronald Yeung Receives OOAE-Division ASME Lifetime Achievement Award
ME Professor Ronald Yeung, from the department’s Ocean Engineering Group, received the Ocean, Offshore & Arctic Engineering (OOAE) Division’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (OMAE) conference. Professor Yeung was presented with an engraved plaque from OOAE/ASME during the OMAE2016-Busan Award Luncheon, on June 21, 2106. This prestigious honor is made “in grateful recognition of his significant life-time contributions to the fields …
Making Waves: Turning Ocean Power Into Electricity
Ocean waves have vast energy potential. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates the total wave energy resource along the United States coastline at 2,640 terawatt-hours per year (TWh/yr). One TWh/yr can supply more than 93,000 typical U.S. homes with power annually.
ME Professor Reza Alam and Team Among Finalists for Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development
Congratulations to ME Professor Reza Alam, along with team members Devin Bisconer, Victor Pucci and Marcus Lehmann, on becoming one of the three final teams in the running to win the Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development! The Odebrecht Award “invites university students nationwide to join us in the search for innovative technologies and methods to …
ME Professor M. Reza Alam Featured in American Scientist Cover Article on Ocean Cloaking
The September/October 2015 issue of American Scientist tackles the subject of Ocean Cloaking in the cover article “A Protective Cloak Against Earthquakes and Storms,” referencing the research of ME Professor M. Reza Alam. The article discusses a novel type of cloaking device proposed by Professor Alam back in 2012, which would help protect against damaging …