State legislators took some time from their deliberations recently to look at hexacopters, quadcopters and other ingenious technologies developed at UConn.<\/p>\n
More than a dozen science and engineering displays were set up inside the Old Judiciary Room of the State Capitol Building in Hartford as part of a UConn exhibit. Students and faculty explained the\u00a0science and\u00a0purpose of their displays to legislators and anyone else who stopped by.<\/p>\n
Rosse Gates\u00a0showed off the autonomously controlled quadcopter he developed. The\u00a0helicopter, powered by four rotors,\u00a0is designed to\u00a0be able to land in disaster areas or other areas that may not be accessible by humans.\u00a0The unmanned vehicle\u00a0would be\u00a0programmed with an initial set of GPS coordinates for its destination. The system would find a suitable landing zone and execute a landing using only decisions made by the on-board computer.<\/p>\n
[metaslider id=20908]<\/p>\n
A steady stream of legislators came to the Old Judiciary Room. Many came for the free\u00a0UConn Dairy Bar ice cream (or –\u00a0for the\u00a0culinarily adventurous –\u00a0marshmallows frozen in liquid nitrogen), but stayed for the science. Rep. Theresa Conroy of the 105th District said all the demonstrations were impressive.<\/p>\n
“It’s really amazing the thought processes that go into these,” she said. As a registered nurse, Conroy said she was particularly interested in the glucose monitor on display.<\/p>\n
The monitor is developed by Biorasis, a company founded by\u00a0Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, Associate Director of the Institute of Materials Science, and Faquir Jain,\u00a0Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering. It’s currently\u00a0the smallest implantable biosensor for continuous glucose monitoring.<\/p>\n
“Five years ago, it was the size of a table,” Papadimitrakopoulos said. “Now it’s two millimeters.”<\/p>\n
But it’s still not small enough. “Right now, we’re trying to bring it down to one millimeter,” he said.<\/p>\n
Juliana Barrett of the UConn Connecticut Sea Grant and Department of Extension, and Richard Meinert of the agriculture department of\u00a0 the Extension Service Center, brought their hexacopter,\u00a0a six-rotor helicopter used to map shore erosion along the Long Island Sound.<\/p>\n
And in nice marriage of low tech (a spindly tree) and high tech (motion sensors), the UConn Department of Natural Resources and the Environment\u00a0presented its Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and technologies for tree biomechanics research, which can reduce power outages and contribute to\u00a0vegetation management efforts .<\/p>\n
Assistant Extension Professor Tom Worthley an\u00a0Amanda Bunce,\u00a0a student going for her \u00a0Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management and Policy, explained the technology. Working with the School of Engineering, the researchers are using LiDAR to measure tree heights by bouncing light off the canopies of forests. And with the sensors, they’re measuring\u00a0the speed and severity of trees’ movements in the wind, which allows them to identify riskiest spots for power outages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n (Photos by Chris LaRosa\/UConn)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They came for the ice cream, but stayed for the dazzling displays of technology at the State Capitol Building<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":184792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[56,68],"class_list":["post-20960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 16:11:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222109,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20960\/revisions\/222109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/184792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20960"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=20960"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}