Seniors Present Work at Cable Symposium

Their Senior Design Team is sponsored by the International Wire and Cable Symposium (IWCS), and on Oct. 1 the Lee College of Engineering Fiber Optic Strain Gauge Using Pseudorandom Code Interrogation team presented its work to the 2019 International Cable & Connectivity Symposium held at the Charlotte Convention Center.

The IWCS International Cable & Connectivity Symposium is the premier venue for new technologies in wire, cable and connectivity products, processes and applications. The UNC Charlotte team presented its work in the Emerging Technology portion of the technical forums.

“Our project is to develop a fiber optic strain gauge using pseudrandom integration,” said Will Hodges, the team’s project lead. “Our solution is to wrap bare fiber optic strands around PVC pipe, pressurize the pipe and then measure the strain. We are developing both the gauge and test apparatus.”

The project is in its second semester. The team will present the final prototype of the strain gauge at the December 2019 Senior Design Expo. Team members are Hodges, Elliot Panicco, Ryan McEntire, Simon Jackowski, Abhishek Jawale and Damon Pate, and the team mentors are Dr. Gary Hodgins and Franklin Green.

“The conference was a great experience,” Hodges said. “It was wonderful to get exposed to that environment, and we were very well received.”