This NSF award will be utilized to renovate approximately 5,600 square feet of research space in the Steele Laboratory of Electrical Sciences on the campus of the California Institute of Technology. Steele Lab is approximately 30 years old, and the renovation will retrofit the facility to the changed emphasis of Cal Tech electrical engineering research programs. In addition, it will consolidate researchers into one facility to work together on interdisciplinary projects in communications and automatic control. All seven project faculty have joined the faculty in the last ten years. Specific renovation activities include construction of a unique high bay area to house a flexible structure experiment as well as a distillation column of sufficient size to mimic actual industrial problems. A local area network will be established to increase researcher interaction and to overcome the inefficiencies associated with use of the campus backbone system which is approaching maximum capacity. The project will have an important impact on faculty growth and student enrollment, including minorities and women, in the competitive area of communications and automatic control.
