Worcester Polytechnic Institute

About: Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a education organization based out in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Data envelopment analysis. The organization has 6270 authors who have published 12704 publications receiving 332081 citations. The organization is also known as: WPI.

Open channel flows with submerged obstructions

Abstract: Free-surface flows past a submerged triangular obstacle at the bottom of a channel are considered. The flow is assumed to be steady, two-dimensional and irrotational; the fluid is treated as inviseid and incompressible and gravity is taken into account. The problem is solved numerically by series truncation. It is shown that there are solutions for which the flow is suberitical upstream and supercritical downstream and other flows for which the flow is supercritical both upstream and downstream. The latter flows have limiting configurations with a stagnation point on the free surface with a 120° angle at it. It is found that solutions exist for triangular obstacles of arbitrary size. Local solutions are constructed to describe the flow near the apex when the height of the triangular obstacle is infinite.

A precise embedded curvature sensor module for soft-bodied robots

Abstract: As an emerging field, soft-bodied robots require profoundly different approaches to sensing and actuation compared to their rigid-bodied counterparts. Electro-mechanical design, fabrication, and operational challenges due to material elasticity significantly complicate embedded, modular and precise proprioceptive feedback. This work presents a novel curvature sensor module to address the unique soft robotic specifications. The proposed device utilizes a magnet and an electronic Hall effect sensing component to accurately measure curvatures on a soft-bodied bending segment on a flexible circuit board, ensuring contact-free sensing. We verify performance of sensor modules on static and dynamic bending deformations based on a single initial calibration step. To the best of our knowledge, the presented device is the first modular and integrated soft-bodied sensor design that is demonstrated to be accurate up to 7.5 Hz with a root mean square error of 0.023 cm −1 between measured and actual curvature without filtering out the intrinsic noise, and available for use with soft-bodied kinematic bending chains.

Transistorlike behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a triple-well potential

Abstract: In the last several years considerable efforts have been devoted to developing Bose-Einstein-condensate-based devices for applications such as fundamental research, precision measurements, and integrated atom optics. Such devices, capable of complex functionality, can be designed from simpler building blocks as is done in microelectronics. One of the most important components of microelectronics is a transistor. We demonstrate that a Bose-Einstein condensate in a three-well potential structure where the tunneling of atoms between two wells is controlled by the population in the third shows behavior similar to that of an electronic field-effect transistor. Namely, it exhibits switching and both absolute and differential gain. The role of quantum fluctuations is analyzed, and estimates of the switching time and parameters for the potential are presented.