PFI in Acoustic and Ultrasound Technologies
for Medical and Industrial Applications
Villanova University
Center for Advanced Communications, College of Engineering
PI: Moeness Amin Co PIs: Gary Gabriele, Richard Thompson, Yimin Zhang
NSF Award #IIP-0917690
2 Year Award
Start Date: 1 March 2010
Key Attributes of our
Innovation Ecosystem:
Brief Project Overview:
Focus:
Questioning & Curiosity:
Acoustic and ultrasound education, research, and
development with emphases on medical and industrial
applications.
Machine Monitoring:
1. How to best characterize abnormalities?
2. How to validate developed algorithms?
3. Is it possible to perform fusion to improve performance of
device monitoring?
Goals:
1. Stimulate innovations in the focusing areas by
catalyzing partnerships between universities, and
private and public sector organizations.
Medical Imaging:
1. Can advances in signal processing algorithms improve
detection and classification of anomalies?
2. Are the proposed solutions robust and patient-invariant or
are they sensitive to patient variables (e.g., obesity)?
2. Broaden the participations of the partner academic
institutions.
Metallic prosthetic mitral valve () causes acoustic shadowing
and reverberation () due to the interaction of the ultrasound
with the metallic structures, making accurate determination of
the presence/absence of vegetation (infection) difficult.
3. Enhance the enabling infrastructure to sustain the
partnership.
1. Enhancement might be minimal or non-existent!
2. Cost of implementations might be too high!
3. Necessary and prior patient information may be inaccurate
or unattainable!
4. Timeline may be too short or funding may be too small!
5. Real data may become hard to obtain and face logistic
difficulties!
Facilities
Program Activities:
1. Bring together a team of three Universities,
a Federal Lab, four companies, and a State
Economic Development Organization, to
advance the state-of-the-art in acoustic and
ultrasound technologies.
Openness:
Top Contributions:
2. Broaden participation by partnering with
Gwynedd-Mercy College (75% female
enrollment, a group typically underserved
in technical opportunities) and Bucknell
University (never participated in any interuniversity NSF program).
1. Novel applications of advanced/emerging signal
processing techniques to
a. Improving ultrasound
applications;
imaging
for
medical
b. Acoustic and ultrasound monitoring of machinery to
advance predictive maintenance.
2. Development of new joint teaching curricula in
acoustics.
3. Create a strong team with diverse skills
and experience, necessary for establishing
a regional infrastructure which will sustain
and enhance acoustic and ultrasound
technologies.
Top Challenges:
1. Identification of specific technology opportunities in
medical imaging and predictive maintenance.
2. Access to raw data streams.
3. Validation and assessment of outcomes and results.
Partners:
4. Follow-on funding.
Senior Institutional
Administrator
Technology
Funding
Education
Technology
Technology
State Funding
Villanova
University
Technology
Technology
Education
Funding
Education
PFI
Corporate
Partners
Keystone
Innovation
Zone (KIZ)
Technology
Funding
Gwynedd-Mercy
College
NAVSEA
Ben Franklin
Technology
Partners
Partnership
Investment/Technology/
Commercialization
New, Small and
Medium Companies
Commercialization
Bucknell
University
Risk Taking:
.
1. Technical publication of results
2. Course development at university partners
3. Sharing information and research findings among all
partners
Collaboration Across Fields:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Physics
Electrical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Medical imaging
Medicine
Commercialization and economic development
Placing Partners in “New
Environments” & “Playgrounds”:
1. GMC has not been involved in an NSF project since 1992.
2. Villanova plans to use this award to shift its activities into
industrial and medical fields.
3. Siemens has never worked with any of the partners of this
project.
4. Villanova and GMC have never worked on a project
together.
5. Bucknell has never worked with any of the partners neither
has it collaborated with Villanova in research or education.
Leading/Inspiring for Surprising
or Unexpected Results
1. Partners in this PFI are all new to each other.
2. In leading this team, Villanova hopes to capitalize on their
unique skills and experience such that the whole will exceed
the sum of the parts.
3. Inside-out thinking by all will lead to novel results – both
expected and unexpected.
National Science Foundation Partnerships For Innovation
Grantee’s Meeting April 25-27, 2010
Arlington, VA
.
.