Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

CCEE Professor wins 2008 NEES Award for Best IT Innovation

 

Sri Sritharan, associate professor of structural engineering, was honored with a 2008 NEES Award for Best IT Innovation for the development of a real-time system innovation tool to perform large-scale seismic tests remotely. Other ISU contributors to the development of this tool, Assoc. Professor Manimaran of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. Jian Zhao, a former post-doctoral researcher of Sritharan and an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, were also recognized by the award.

This award recognizes a new IT technique or product developed during the past year that either builds upon existing technology in a fresh or innovative way, results in a tool for network-wide use, or is a time-saving use of existing technology. The innovation may have also resulted in newly developed software or hardware.

Sritharan says, “This tool not only enabled us to remotely participate in an experimental research , but also help us to effectively contribute to decision-making during the tests.” In this project, Sritharan and his team were able to remotely operate cameras, conduct tests, as well as visualize data and compare experimental and analytical results in real time. The researchers also were able to add new instruments to determine why some discrepancies between observed and simulated results occurred, which would not have been possible without the real-time capabilities.

Sritharan was presented the award at the NEES 6th Annual Meeting Banquet on June 19th in Portland, Oregon. The award is currently on display in the CCEE main office.

 

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