Two research teams led by USC have won Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grants from the Department of Defense, each worth up to $5 million over five years.

USC was one of seven universities to win more than one MURI grant.

The winning principal investigators are Kenneth Nealson, professor of earth sciences and biological sciences in the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, for a proposal to develop microbial fuel cells that could act as remote power supplies for a multitude of purposes, ranging from remote sensors to tiny insect-like drones; and Boris Rozovsky, professor of mathematics in the USC College with a joint appointment in aerospace and mechanical engineering, for a proposal to automatically track large groups of moving targets.

“The development of microbial fuel cells and of multi-target tracking systems address fundamental issues of national security,” said Joseph Aoun, dean of USC College. “USC is well-positioned to integrate the expertise of both the basic and applied scientist – a strategy that makes us unique as a research enterprise and that will be instrumental to the success of these projects.”

Nealson’s group will try to develop a microbial fuel cell capable of powering small devices that might include chemical and biological sensors and self-propelled airborne devices that fit in the palm of a hand.

Microbial fuel cells theoretically can run on almost any natural substance: bacteria in the fuel cells strip electrons from organic material to produce an electric current.

Nealson’s research focuses on Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 – a harmless, ubiquitous bacterium. He already has identified the genes responsible for electron transfer.

Next, he aims to understand the mechanism involved in electrical current production and to manipulate the genes to create a high-powered mutant strain that can feed and recharge wherever it lands.

“The goal is to create a compact, integrated, high-power-density, microbial fuel cell, understand how it works, achieve a level of power that will enable self-propulsion and then miniaturize the device so that it can be self-sustaining in the field both in terms of refueling and repair,” Nealson said.

The Air Force has long been interested in micro-scale air vehicles – originally envisioned as mechanical flying insects – but has been stymied by the lack of a suitable, compact power source with practical refueling options.

A mundane microbe may solve that problem, not just for flying insects but for a wide range of uses.

“Our multidisciplinary approach, including modeling of the system, should allow us to rationally scale the fuel cell up or down in scale,” Nealson said. “For instance, the energy source could be scaled up to power a wastewater treatment plant.”

The research team includes USC’s Steven Finkel, assistant professor of biological sciences; Surya Prakash, professor of chemistry; Florian Mansfeld, professor of chemical engineering and materials science; Paul Ronney, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering; and Hai Wang, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering.

Andreas Luttge, professor of earth sciences and chemistry at Rice University, will serve as co-investigator. Byung-Hong Kim, director of the Microbial Ecology Fuel Cell group at Korean Institute of Science and Technology, will collaborate with the team while on sabbatical at USC.

Meanwhile, Rozovsky will lead an effort to extend his own groundbreaking work in non-linear filtering. Among other applications, non-linear filtering can be used to track targets moving erratically in high background noise, such as cruise missiles in the sky or terrorists hiking through rugged terrain.

“It’s the problem of finding a needle in a haystack, but the problem is the needle is moving,” Rozovsky said. “Or it might not be a (single) needle, but many with different characteristics.”

So far, the number of targets trackable at one time has been limited to a few dozen. The MURI project aims to achieve real-time tracking of thousands of mobile agents. Rozovsky called this a “quantum leap” over previous systems made possible by advances in computing power and basic mathematical research.

“Now you could think about tracking a large number of terrorists,” he said.

The same system could be used to detect computer hackers, Rozovsky said, or to track drugs, blood clots or other substances as they move through the body.

Rozovsky, who directs the Center for Applied Mathematical Sciences (CAMS) in USC College, co-developed the first complete non-linear filter in the early 1980s.

His collaborators on the MURI project include USC’s Isaac Cohen, research assistant professor of computer science (currently at Honeywell); Paul Cohen, deputy division director of the Information Sciences Institute; Christos Papadopoulos, assistant professor of computer science; and Alexander Tartakovsky, research scientist in mathematics – all members of CAMS – along with Andrea Bertozzi, Jeffrey Brantingham and Tony Chan of UCLA, and Venugopal Veeravalli of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Every person is the best in the world in his or her particular area,” Rozovsky said. “My main achievement is that I was able to collect a brilliant team.”

The MURI program, administered by the Department of Defense, sponsors multidisciplinary projects at U.S. universities with both military and commercial potential.