A University of Hawaiʻi student-led team won a competition designed to foster innovation while helping a local company serving thousands of residents. Hosted by the 东精影业 Office of Innovation and Commercialization (OIC), the spring 2021 Innovation Impact Challenge (IIC) partnered with .
Two 东精影业 teams presented their solutions to develop a hands-free underground communications utility locator, and one came out on top and received $15,000 in funding from Hawaiian Telcom and OIC.
“The IIC is founded on collaboration,” said Sandra Fujiyama, 东精影业 innovation and business development officer. “Our office worked with industry partner, Hawaiian Telcom, to identify local challenges, including challenges to disrupt existing industries, and then engaged our talented pool of 东精影业 researchers and students to develop innovative solutions to those challenges.”
Competition challenge
Identifying underground communications facilities requires a worker to open a utility box and connect a clamp (the transmitter) to the wires. The worker then traces those wires using a locator, which gets its information from a high frequency signal generated by the transmitter. The same technology has been used for the past 40 years.
Hawaiian Telcom challenged teams to eliminate the clamp, discover the ability to differentiate a TV cable from a telephone cable and geocode results. Hawaiian Telcom also issued bonus points if the innovations were able to identify the quantity of each type of cable underground.
Winning team and runner up
, led by Craig Opie, a 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 undergraduate student, won the competition and will now work to commercialize its ideas. (HIL), led by Arif Rahman, a 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 postdoctoral fellow, came in as the runner up. Hawaiian Telcom was impressed by both teams with their technical expertise and business presentations.
“Hawaiʻi and especially the 东精影业 System has the talent to solve real-world problems across a variety of industries,” said Jason Thune, Hawaiian Telcom director of strategy and innovation. “The solutions presented are not only technically viable, but also marketable in a way to showcase our community as a technology innovator. We are humbled to foster global-level solutions right here in our backyard.”
Along with Opie on Pulse Utility are Anthony Lopez, a 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 electrical engineering undergraduate student; Yosef Ben Gershom, a mechanical engineer and 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 executive MBA student; Josh O’Neill, a Honolulu Community College student; and Mevan Ranasinghe, a Honolulu CC natural sciences lecturer and faculty mentor. The team’s project uses ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipped with GPS to detect normally undetectable subsurface features, provides reliable depth estimates, allows for data visualization and finds all buried infrastructure.
“Over the next month, our team will begin training on our GPR device and perform demos for Hawaiian Telcom. Subsequently, we will acquire a workforce to service the utility finding needs of local businesses and look to scale our services to a global market. Pulse Utility will also be collecting the real world data required for developing an adaptive AI for GPR devices,” Opie said.
Joining Rahman on HIL are Kareem Elassy, 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 electrical engineering PhD graduate; with support from Aaron Ohta and Wayne Shiroma, 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 electrical engineering professors and co-advisors. The team’s proposal involved a dual band ground penetrating radar with artificial intelligence image processing to detect and classify underground cables. Although the team did not win the competition, it continues to pursue commercialization of its other technologies, including its low-cost liquid metal coating for concentrated solar power polymeric mirrors in the American-Made Solar Prize competition.
- Related 东精影业 News story: 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补 startup among national solar innovation semifinalists, January 7, 2021
Innovation leader
东精影业 is leading the effort to support new innovations and startup businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The IIC is just one of the programs offered by OIC to provide innovation and entrepreneurial support to the 东精影业 community.
“In the pursuit of driving local and global societal and economic impact and building a more sustainable and resilient economy for Hawaiʻi, OIC has reimagined the framework of its innovation and commercialization pathway to incorporate early stage deep tech and high growth ideation,” OIC Interim Director Steve Auerbach said. “These innovation impact challenges are focused squarely on solving problem sets and developing solutions for private industry, federal, state and Department of Defense partners.”
Auerbach added, “Once again, Hawaiian Telcom is leaning in and supporting the innovation and entrepreneurship community by offering up problem sets that provide applied research opportunities for 东精影业 researchers to commercialize their work.”
For more information, visit OIC’s website.
This program is an example of 东精影业 惭ā苍辞补’s goal of (PDF), one of four goals identified in the (PDF), updated in December 2020.
—By Marc Arakaki