Assistant Professor and Director of Energy Harvesting and Mechatronics Research Lab

State University of New York at Stony Brook

 

Abstract: Energy harvesting from environments has attracted a lot of attention in the past 10 years and is enabling many promising applications like self-powered wireless sensors.  Nowadays the majority of research on energy harvesting focuses on small energy 10uW to 100mW.  In fact, the vibrations in some situations can be very large, such as, the vibrations of tall buildings, long bridges, vehicle systems, railroads, and ocean waves. With the global concern about energy and environmental issues, large-scale energy harvesting is more attractive and becomes a new research frontier.This presents unique challenges and multidisciplinary research in the associated areas of vibration, structural dynamics, mechatronics design, energy converting, power electronics, and real-time control. This talk will describe my current research effortson this topic, including10KW-100KW energy harvesting and control of wind-induced vibration of tall buildings, 100W-1000W energy harvesting from vehicle suspensions, railway energy harvesting for track-side electrification, and ocean wave energy harvesting.  The key challenges, our specific solutions, recent results, and the future research directions will be discussed. Some other funded research including thermoelectricity and biosensors will also be included.

 

Bio Sketch:Lei Zuo completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and M.S. in both Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering from MIT in 2005 and 2002.  He also held a B.S. in Automotive Engineering from Tsinghua University. He joined Stony Brook University in the Fall 2008 after working in industry for four years.  Lei Zuo’s research interests include energy harvesting, vibration control, thermoelectric materials, mechatronic design, smart structures, and biosensors. In less than four years he has secured over two millions of US dollars of funding support from NSF, DOE, DOT,NYSERDA and industry. He won the R&D 100 Award in 2011 and was the Winner of Best Technology Development of Energy Harvesting in 2010. Lei Zuo authors over 60 research papers in journals and conferences.He is a selected member of several ASME and IEEE committees on vibration, control, mechantronics, and energy harvesting.