August 23, 2022. The Tufts sonic anemometer flew to 124,000 feet on a 11 million cubic foot helium balloon out of Fort Sumner, New Mexico on a piggyback courtesy of the NASA Balloon Programs Office and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. The goal was to measure stratospheric winds using the prototype high altitude sonic anemometer. Good job students Tim Cheng, Tara Curran, and Freidlay Steve for making this happen! https://tinyurl.com/3k29xhvc

September 1, 2022. Rishabh Chaudhary joined the group as a new PHD student. Rishabh will be working on the Mars Sonic Anemometer project. Welcome Rishabh!

Happy to welcome 8 students who are working in the lab this summer! Glad to be working with Aidan Beckett, Tim Cheng, Tara Curran, Odin Doolittle, Lillian Fullford, Olive Rappoli, Freidlay Steve, and David Zhang. https://sites.tufts.edu/senselab/people/

Prof. White traveled to Denver to attend the Acoustical Society of America meeting and present a paper:

Robert White and Don Banfield, “Sonic Anemometry on a High Altitude Balloon” presented at the 182^nd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Denver, CO, May 23-27, 2022.

On Friday March 18 we launched a latex high altitude helium filled balloon from Troy NY and recovered it in Weston MA, a flight of 225 kilometers (139 miles). The balloon reached an altitude of greater than 70,000 feet, but unfortunately we lost contact and do not know the maximum altitude achieved, we estimated it at between 80,000 and 90,000 feet. Although the goal of the flight was to fly the Tufts sonic anemometer – we were unsuccessful this time but we will try again! It was a good dry run to understand the radio and tracking equipment. All FAA and FCC regulations were followed, and a NOTAM was filed.

Dec 3, 2021

Freidlay Steve, Reid Baris, Mischael Anilus, and Lillian Fullford made the trip and presented three papers (presentations by Freidlay, Reid, and Lillian), with collaborating authors from Tanner Research, Draper, Cornell, and MIT PSFC:

Freidlay Steve, Robert Littrell, Craig Core, Don Banfield, and Robert D. White, “Aluminum Nitride Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers with Applications in Sonic Anemometry” in the 181st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA, Nov 29 – Dec 3 2021.

Lillian J. Fullford, Robert D. White, Jonathan J. Bernstein, “Vibro-Tactile Display for the Visually Impaired using Miniature Electrostatic Transducers”, in the 181st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA, Nov 29 – Dec 3, 2021.

Reid Baris, Mischael Anilus, Zijia Zhao, Steve Chau, Wayne Liu, Amish Desai, Michael Emerling, Robert Littrell, Craig Core, Stacey Tang, Luisa Chiesa, Makoto Takayasu, and Robert D. White, “Cryogenic Testing of Microphones and Preamplifiers for MEMS Quench Detection in Superconducting Magnets” in the 181st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA, Nov 29 – Dec 3, 2021.

Sept 17, 2021

Excited to be working with Tim Cheng, Olive Rappoli, Mischael Anilus, Lily Fullford, Julia Huckaby , Eduardo Vargas, Reid Baris, and Freidlay Steve.

Aug 30, 2021

… on a NASA Wallops balloon over New Mexico. The system is a demonstration of a high resolution, high speed, three dimensional relative wind measurement system which can operate at low pressures and temperatures such as Earth’s stratosphere or the surface of Mars. Funding from the NASA PICASSO program. Glad to be working with Don Banfield at Cornell and Chris Yoder at NASA Wallops. More info.

August 1, 2021

Zijia Zhao, Peter Moore, Casey Owen, Mischael Anilus, Steve Chau, Amish Desai, Michael Emerling, Luisa Chiesa, Makoto Takayasu, and Robert White “Characterization of MEMS Acoustic Sensors and Amplifiers in Cryogenic Fluids for Quench Detection Applications in HTS CICC”, in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 1-5, Aug. 2021. DOI 10.1109/TASC.2021.3062784