URIs_MOMENTUM_Research_and_Innovation_Magazine_Fall_2022_Mel

The braider shown is building a braid that integrates 138 insulated 50 micron conductors (wires). URI Engineering Professor Helio Matos is actively integrating these into composite test samples for evaluation within a 401 Tech Bridge-supported project. This is connected to work Nautilus and URI have done with the U.S. Air Force.

private funds, including in-kind support, and is going after other federal and state grants, including money left over in the innovation campus bond, to make the vision a reality. At the heart of the effort is the SmartBay initiative, which will employ sensors deployed throughout Narragansett Bay to measure a variety of attributes, including temperature, salinity, tidal flow, and wave height across the bay in real time. In some cases, it will knit together existing monitoring systems from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and other sources. At the same time, it will develop new technological enhancements including mobile underwater vehicles and undersea cameras to provide a complete picture of the surrounding ocean. “We will basically create a living research and development, and deployment and testing, platform for use by researchers, corporations, the Navy and international partners who have expressed interest in such a capability,” Rumsey explains. One of the leaders of the effort is Jim Owens, a Warwick, Rhode Island native and principal of Nautilus Defense, a company that creates smart textiles by integrating electronics and optical sensors into fabrics. Previously, Owens worked

“It’s a really excellent opportunity for all these partners with different capabilities to operate in parallel but independently from each other, with clear prospects for integrating these capabilities to deliver something greater than the sum of its parts.”

JIM OWENS Principal Nautilus Defense

- Jim Owens

Braider bobbins loaded with structural and functional materials.

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