Keith Brown

Automating Structural Discovery

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Brown group is exploring a new paradigm of manufacturing in which autonomous research systems construct, test, and revise designs without human interaction through a cycle that involves automated experiments and machine learning to select experiments. As this type of system produces an enormous volume of experimental data, there are tremendous opportunities for gleaming insight into the structural basis of material properties, such as mechanical metamaterial response. In this project, the student will utilize our autonomous research system to ask and answer questions about the metamaterial properties of structural systems. In addition to guiding experiments and performing analysis, the student will also select samples for post hoc analysis using advanced characterization approaches.

LABORATORY MENTOR
Aldair Gongora

RESEARCH GOALS
-Determine the structural basis for metamaterial mechanics in polymer lattices
-Incorporate an imaging system to record mechanical tests
-Automate a data analysis process for mechanical data and images
-Perform high resolution characterization of structures

LEARNING GOALS
-Learn about autonomous research systems and how machine learning can contribute to materials development
-Develop a set of skills for image processing and high throughput data analysis
-Learn how to develop heuristics for classifying data

Learn more about Professor Brown on his faculty page.