Dayton Engineer

University of Dayton faculty and University of Dayton Research Institute researchers will collaborate on three research projects this summer focused on self-healing polymers, lightweight composite aircraft and artificial intelligence.

The projects were selected as part of the 2024 UD/UDRI Summer Research Fellows program. Launched in 2017, the program matches School of Engineering and College of Arts and Sciences faculty with UDRI engineers and scientists, with the goal of expanding areas of research that are fundable by external sponsors.

The program enables formal collaboration between UD and UDRI to help build research networks and produce joint grant and contract proposals. Faculty lend their expertise while learning more about UDRI’s research, capabilities and personnel, while UDRI benefits from interactions with UD faculty who have needed expertise to pursue new funded research projects.  

The 2024 UD/UDRI Summer Research Fellows cohort:

• Alex Watson, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Management, Systems and Technology, and Allyson Cox, additive manufacturing engineer in UDRI’s structural materials division, will collaborate on the project “Self-Healing Polymers and Inks for Novel Flexible Electronics.” The team will investigate the potential of laser-activated liquid metal inks on additive manufactured, self-healing polymer substrates. Their goal is to advance the technology to novel applications including smart seals, sensing soft robots, healing fuel bladders and more. This effort will expand on an existing relationship among UD, UDRI, and the Air Force Research Laboratory, opening pathways for further collaboration.
• Abdullah Al Amin, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and John Rohmer, research engineer in UDRI’s structural materials division, will collaborate on the project “Revolutionizing Lightweight Aerostructure Design with Innovative Topology Optimization.” Their research will focus on improving the usability of topology and fiber alignment optimization tools for the rapid design and manufacture of lightweight composite aircraft. Topology and fiber alignment optimization is a mathematical technique to minimize the amount of material needed while maximizing the performance for engineering applications. Their goal is to integrate advanced design processes and manufacturing technologies to enable the rapid development of future aircraft.
• Ngoc Nguyen, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, will work with Ian Cannon, machine learning research engineer, and Patrick Hytla, group leader and principal image processing engineer — both in UDRI’s applied sensing division — on the project “Exploring Cognitive-Inspired Model Distillation Techniques for Explainable Reinforcement Learning.” Their project aims to tackle the intricacy of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) by leveraging cognitive modeling as a common ground between human users and advanced AI algorithms, particularly reinforcement learning. By distilling these models into more interpretable and transparent forms within a cognitive architecture, the researchers hope to demystify and explain the underlying decision-making processes in easily understandable terms. This understanding is essential in areas where trust and understanding of AI decisions are critical, such as health care and autonomous vehicles. A better understanding of these AI technologies will enhance the confidence of human users and the general public’s attitudes toward them.

The research pairs will commence work in May and present their results to the College, School of Engineering and UDRI in September.