Researchers Balachandran, Cameron, and Yu Receive 2024 MURI Award
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| Professor Maria K. Cameron, Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland. |
A team led by Minta Martin and Distinguished University Professor Balakumar Balachandran has been selected for a Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Program Award, with sponsorship by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The MURI program supports interdisciplinary science and engineering research, with the goal of stimulating innovation, accelerating research progress, and expediting the transition from research to application. This year, the DoD will distribute $221 million in awards to 30 teams from 73 academic institutions.
Balachandran is leading researchers from four universities on a project entitled "Disorder-Influenced Collective Dynamics of Nonlinear Oscillator Systems." Other members of the team from UMD include Wilson Elkins Professor Miao Yu (Mechanical Engineering/Maryland Robotics Center/Institute for Systems Research), and Professor Maria Cameron (Department of Mathematics). Participating universities also include the San Diego State University, University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
The overall research goal is to develop a comprehensive framework informed and enabled by dynamical systems theory, experimental investigations, and brain-inspired computing paradigms, to understand and harness disorder-influenced collective dynamics in nonlinear networks.
The team plans to employ equivariant bifurcation theory, study different network models with disorder, construct mathematical and computational tools for large oscillator networks, and conduct experimental studies with Josephson junction networks, optomechanical oscillator networks, heterogeneous optical resonator networks, and mechanical oscillator arrays.
The research outcomes, which will include the development of a foundational basis to understand disorder-influenced dynamics in complex systems, can benefit a wide range of systems and applications (e.g., optical sensing systems, coupled inertial navigation sensor systems, precision timing systems, chip scale nano-photonic devices, fluxgate magnetometers, Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs), and communication devices).