Two research projects – one focusing on virtual reality exposure and the other on a pretreatment for battery parts – have received funding by the UWM Graduate School’s Discovery and Innovation Grant (DIG) program. This yearlong, internal seed funding prioritizes new lines of research that have high external funding potential.
The grants from engineering and computer science were among a dozen awards given for this academic year.
Studying how walking in VR changes what we see in real life
Jerald Thomas, assistant professor, computer science
Members of Thomas’ lab are studying how real-world movements translate to virtual reality – and what happens when the two don’t align. The most natural way to navigate VR is by walking, with steps mirrored in the virtual world. This helps users build a mental map, just like in real life.
But virtual spaces are often much larger than the physical space available. Designers of VR use a strategy called “translation gain” to mark changes in how far you appear to move in VR compared to real life.
For instance, one meter of physical walking might equal 1.5 meters virtually. Small adjustments usually go unnoticed by the user, though sensitivity varies by person.
Thomas will test a question no one else has: Does VR alter how people judge distances once the headset is off—and how long those effects last. It’s important because altered depth perception after using VR could pose a safety hazard for users, Thomas said.
Scaling up a patented process to cut lithium loss in batteries
Xiaoxiao Zhang, scientist, mechanical engineering
Deyang Qu, professor, mechanical engineering (co-investigator)
Zhang and Qu are demonstrating a new way to enhance battery performance by pre-treating electrodes through their patented process at a pilot scale.
“One of the key challenges with lithium-ion batteries is that they lose a portion of active lithium during the very first charge, which reduces performance right from the start,” Zhang said. “Our patent addresses this issue by pre-treating the electrode with li-organic complex solution to compensate for that initial loss.”
This pretreatment can be directly integrated into existing production lines and is compatible with both lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. It also is adaptable to multiple anode types – from hard carbon to silicon – and can be precisely tuned to add the right amount of lithium or sodium.
The grant will allow them to test the process at the semi-industrial scale.
If successful, this work could lead to longer-lasting, more affordable batteries for technologies like electric cars. Also, by wasting less lithium in production, it also helps conserve a valuable resource and reduce environmental impact.