UROP Openings

Battery-free Ocean and Climate IoT with FPGA programming and Sensor Integration

Project Description

The MIT Signal Kinetics group has built the world’s first battery-free ocean IoT, which can be used for ecological, environmental, and climate monitoring as well as underwater robotic navigation and sensing. The following articles describe the technology and its applications: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/20/mit-develops-a-sensor-that-can-work-underwater-without-a-battery-and-send-back-data/ https://news.mit.edu/2020/underwater-gps-navigation-1102 This UROP project focuses on extending ocean IoT sensor nodes with analog and/or digital sensor interfaces to enable sensing key environmental metrics such as temperature, pH, pollution, luminosity, and others. The final design will be tested in the Charles River at the MIT sailing pavilion. There is more than 1 opening for this position. UROPs can start working on the project as early as IAP. Responsibilities: The responsibilities of this position will include: (1) Research analog and digital sensors, including reading schematics of the sensors (2) Interface the sensors with an FPGA and power supply (3) Program and test the FPGA integration. (4) Demonstrated readout/communication in water. (5) Work with a team to present your work and integrate with large research platform

Pre-requisites

- Background in FPGA programming (e.g., 6.111) - Ability to read schematics - Programming experience in Matlab and Python or C++ Preferred (but not hard prerequisites): - Experience with PCB design - Experience with PSpice - Hands-on experience with hardware integration