Smart Environments

Cook named a fellow of National Academy of Inventors

By Erik Gomez, Voiland College of Engineering & Architecture intern PULLMAN, Wash. – Diane Cook, a Washington State University researcher who created one of the first, fully instrumented, smart home test sites and has equipped 100 smart apartments with sensor networks in 10 countries, has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

$3M grant for Columbia basin food, energy, water needs

By Tina Hilding, Voiland College of Engineering & Architecture PULLMAN, Wash. – A team led by Washington State University will study how to better coordinate and manage the food, water and energy needs of the Columbia River basin and make the region more resilient to a changing climate as part of a $3 million grant […]

Researchers develop shape-changing smart material

By Tina Hilding, Voiland College of Engineering & Architecture PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University researchers have developed a unique, multifunctional smart material that can change shape from heat or light and assemble and disassemble itself. They have filed a provisional patent on the work.

Researchers measure gait to reduce falls from glaucoma

By Michelle Fredrickson, Voiland College of Engineering & Architecture PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University researchers have developed a way to carefully analyze a person’s gait with sensors, an innovation that could lead to reduced falls and injuries in people with glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness in the United States.

Missing ingredient in energy-efficient buildings: People

By Tina Hilding, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture PULLMAN, Wash. – More than one-third of new commercial building space includes energy-saving features, but without training or an operator’s manual many occupants are in the dark about how to use them.

Green highway snow and ice control cuts the chemicals

By Rebecca Phillips, University Communications PULLMAN, Wash. – Ice-free pavement. “Smart snowplows.” Vegetable juice ice-melt. Cold-climate researchers at Washington State University are clearing the road with green alternatives to the salt, sand and chemicals typically used for highway snow and ice control.