Aiden Dodge’s drone before its flight
BurkeLab
UCI Nanotechnology Group
The following projects were recognized as the top 3 out of 74 EECS senior design projects presented at the Annual Design Review 2026.
*** 3D Mapping and Modeling Drone System Students: Haoling Wang, Ryan Zhang, Shang-pin Chen, Xin Gao Advisor: Prof. Peter Burke Built a drone-based 3D mapping platform that integrates LiDAR sensing, onboard NVIDIA Jetson computing, and ROS 2 software to generate detailed spatial models for applications such as infrastructure inspection, construction monitoring, and disaster response.
*** AuraBot: An Edge AI Desk Wellness Companion Students: Jianming Zheng, Sijia Zhang, Yixuan Jing, Manqing Chen, Shunquan Wang Advisor: Prof. Zhou Li Built an interactive desktop wellness companion that combines multimodal sensing, expressive robotics, and conversational edge AI to monitor sedentary behavior and encourage healthier daily routines in office and study environments.
*** Passive Analog Beamforming Drone Monitor Students: Kaivan Huo, Kevin Sunzeri, Francine De Borja, Janine delos Santos, Elizabeth Nguyen Advisor: Prof. Peter Burke Designed a low-cost hybrid analog–digital beamforming antenna system that significantly extends Bluetooth and WiFi detection range while enabling simultaneous directional monitoring of signals using passive RF networks and microcontroller-based processing.
Congratulations to our Industry Advisory Board honorees!
Several wins the Senior Project Awards!
March 23, 2026
Congratulations to the following senior design teams who won awards at this year’s Winter Design Review. Peter Burke advised 4 of the top 6 teams!
Dean’s Choice Awards
– PhotonFlight: Fiber Optic Drone Students: Nate Johnson, Nick Brega, Mervin Nguyen, Julius Yang, Desmond Bolia Advisor: Prof. Peter Burke Built a tethered drone that replaces RF communication with a single-strand fiber-optic link to enable secure, interference-free transmission of real-time video and telemetry, integrating onboard AI for human detection and autonomous tracking in hazardous environments.
– EMG-Controlled Prosthetic Hand Students: Antonio Velasco, Nicholas Ward, Alessandria Vega, Vy Huynh Advisor: Prof. Hung Cao Build a low-cost, non-invasive prosthetic hand uses wrist-mounted EMG signals and an embedded convolutional neural network to classify gestures in real time (>90% accuracy, ~39 ms latency), translating muscle activity into controlled finger motion via a 3D-printed, servo-actuated mechanism.
– Wireless Drone Charging Students: Joey Chang, Ruiyuan Ke, Isaac Meyer, Savannah Nguy, Theresa Wang Advisor: Prof. Peter Burke Built an autonomous charging platform uses high-frequency resonant inductive coupling and a MOSFET-based inverter to wirelessly transfer power to a drone, converting it through rectification and regulated buck conversion to safely charge a 2S LiPo battery while incorporating MCU-based control and protection logic.
Industry Advisory Board Awards
– 3D Mapping and Modeling Drone System Students: Haoling Wang, Ryan Zhang, Shang-pin Chen, Xin Gao Advisor: Prof. Peter Burke Built a drone-based 3D mapping platform that integrates LiDAR sensing, onboard NVIDIA Jetson computing, and ROS 2 software to generate detailed spatial models for applications such as infrastructure inspection, construction monitoring, and disaster response.
– AuraBot: An Edge AI Desk Wellness Companion Students: Jianming Zheng, Sijia Zhang, Yixuan Jing, Manqing Chen, Shunquan Wang Advisor: Prof. Zhou Li Built an interactive desktop wellness companion that combines multimodal sensing, expressive robotics, and conversational edge AI to monitor sedentary behavior and encourage healthier daily routines in office and study environments.
-Passive Analog Beamforming Drone Monitor Students: Kaivan Huo, Kevin Sunzeri, Francine De Borja, Janine delos Santos, Elizabeth Nguyen Advisor: Prof. Peter Burke Designed a low-cost hybrid analog–digital beamforming antenna system that significantly extends Bluetooth and WiFi detection range while enabling simultaneous directional monitoring of signals using passive RF networks and microcontroller-based processing.
Congratulations to several!
Sniffing out danger
September 22, 2025
UC Irvine’s electronic nose may transform fields like public safety and environmental protection
- Electronic nose capable of detecting explosives, narcotics, dangerous chemicals and more.
- The device reacts to trace amounts of chemical substances – even those that differ by just a single carbon atom.
- Work supported by the National Science Foundation.
In the heart of UC Irvine’s engineering complex, scientists are working on a device that appeals to the senses: an electronic nose capable of detecting explosives, narcotics, dangerous chemicals and more – down to individual molecules.
Led by Peter Burke, a professor in electrical engineering and computer science, the team aims to fuse nature’s olfactory precision with nanoscale electronics. The goal? A device that reacts to trace amounts of chemical substances – even those that differ by just a single carbon atom.
The objective is to create a handheld device that can instantly detect TNT residue at a crime scene, identify harmful airborne chemicals after an industrial spill or sniff out illicit drugs before they enter the postal system. This electronic nose promises unmatched sensitivity and specificity, potentially transforming fields like public safety, manufacturing, environmental protection and even medical diagnostics.
Three technologies, one nose
The key to the project’s success lies in integrating three complementary advances:
- Fused olfactory receptor–ion channel proteins – these genetically engineered proteins trigger an electrical response when an odor molecule binds
- Nanowire sensing – derived from Burke’s lab, this technology picks up the minute electrical changes generated when a single ion channel opens.
- Lipid bilayer–nanotube tethering chemistry – this innovation securely attaches the sensing proteins to nanostructures capable of transmitting electrical signals.
“The combination of these three technological advances and the result of millions of years of the evolution of olfactory receptor proteins is enabling the goal of single-molecule sensing with specificity towards analytes that differ by as little as one carbon atom,” Burke says.
From lab to real-world impact
In March 2022, the National Science Foundation awarded Burke and his collaborator Francesco Tombola a $450,000 grant to support this initiative, enabling strides toward ultra-sensitive chemical sensors used in security, disaster response, and environmental monitoring. The approach is still conceptual but already patented and laying the groundwork for future “massively parallel” sensor arrays – chips with hundreds of distinct odor-detecting elements.
As part of the regional I-Corps program at UC Irvine, Sangjun Noh, a Ph.D. candidate in Burke’s lab, took the electronic nose project beyond the lab to explore its real-world impact.
Through more than 12 customer discovery interviews with researchers, lab managers and safety officers, he identified a strong need for real-time chemical sensing to enhance laboratory safety and prevent contamination. These insights also revealed potential national security applications, such as detecting explosives and hazardous chemicals. The I-Corps experience not only validated the importance of the technology but also helped the team refine its vision to align with urgent societal challenges.
Why it matters
Imagine a handheld device that can instantly detect TNT residue at a crime scene, identify harmful airborne chemicals after an industrial spill, or sniff out illicit drugs before they enter the postal system. This electronic nose promises unmatched sensitivity and specificity, potentially transforming fields like public safety, manufacturing, environmental protection and even medical diagnostics.
Though promising, the technology must move from proof-of-concept to robust, deployable systems. This means tackling challenges like integrating many sensors on one chip, ensuring stability under real-world conditions, and making the devices affordable and scalable.
But with dual expertise in nanotechnology and electrophysiology, Burke’s lab is poised to bridge biology and engineering in ways few others can.
This project not only showcases cutting-edge science – it taps into deep evolutionary design. By harnessing refined biological receptors and fusing them to advanced electronics, the engineers at UC Irvine are laying the foundation for a technological leap: giving human-made systems the ability to “smell” the world with unparalleled precision.
Generative AI assisted in the writing of this story.
EuRAD2024 Keynote speech by Peter Burke, UC Irvine “Applications of Microwaves from Nano to Macro: Nano-radar to Drone Long Range”
January 29, 2025
Students Build and Fly Guinness-Record Drone
November 23, 2024
https://engineering.uci.edu/news/2024/11/students-build-and-fly-guinness-record-drone
Nov. 21, 2024 – UCI Professor Peter Burke set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance to control a drone. Now, the electrical engineering professor is teaching a class where students get to build and fly that exact drone model.
His record-breaking drone was operated from 11,440 miles away – close to antipode, the furthest distance on the planet – at Réunion, a tiny French island in the Indian Ocean. Burke achieved the milestone by controlling the UAV through the internet rather than by radio signals, the way most commercial drones are flown. Now he’s passing on this cutting-edge drone technology to his students.
Burke’s new class (EECS 195) is giving 77 engineering students the chance to build, program and fly an internet-controlled drone that weighs under 250 grams. “These are tiny drones,” said Burke, “but it’s the same electronics as the big drones used in industry. What they learn can be applied to any-sized drone.” He notes their UAVs have the exact same software and hardware as a hundred-thousand-pound drone a former student of his now operates at a Bay Area startup.
In Burke’s class, the students form teams of three that solder, wire, assemble and program their drones. They also learn FAA regulations, safety protocols and theory of how the components work including the GPS, electric motors, batteries (the same batteries that EVs use), radio propagation and more.
“We’ve had a great time building the drones,” said computer science engineering senior Aiden Dodge. “It’s a great way to apply everything we’ve learned up until this point into a real physical project.”
“My dad is a pilot,” said electrical engineering senior Catherine Riker. “One of the cool perks of this class is that we actually get an FAA license, which I can show off to my dad.”
Many students love the hands-on aspect of the class. “I really like soldering – it’s really cool,” said electrical engineering senior Antara Kundu, who recently interned on an aircraft carrier and wants to work in the defense industry. “I love Professor Burke. He is so nice and willing to help. He wants everyone to succeed.”
Burke’s grading system is simple: teams who build the drone get a C; if it flies, they get a B; and if it succeeds in flying and returning through a pre-programmed flight path, they’ll get an A. Burke believes all of them will succeed.
Riker was ecstatic when their drone aced the final mission. “We were able to fly it manually and it successfully flew to its waypoints and returned home so we got an A+!”
Through this class, Burke is transferring cutting-edge know-how to future engineers. If more UAVs can be controlled over the internet, it could have endless applications including search and rescue operations, ocean, forest and land surveying and much more.
From left: Engineering students Antara Kundu, Ricardo Martinez and Catherine Riker with Professor Peter Burke after the students successfully flew their drone.
This technology can also make drones safer and more useful. Current technology doesn’t enable drones to fly in the national air space system as the UAVs need to be in one’s line of sight – a far cry from Burke’s drone operation capabilities. “Because the drone is connected and controlled through the internet, its range is practically infinite,” said Burke.
Getting drones on the internet is also a way to avoid collision. Burke and his students are working on more ways to make drones safer. But for now, in his novel class, Burke is happy seeing the smiles on students’ faces when their drones finally fly.
– Natalie Tso
Sangjun Noh Awarded as the 2nd Place of the Hardware and Systems track at the 2024 GEECS Annual Technology Showcase
July 30, 2024
Sangjun Noh, PhD student of Burkelab, awarded as the 2nd place of the Hardware and System track at the 2024 GEECS Annual Technology Showcase
European Microwave Week (EuMW) @eumweek
Prof. Peter Burke, IEEE Fellow from UC, is our 1st Plenary Keynote speaker at #EuRAD2024! He’ll unveil groundbreaking microwave & radar advancements, from nano-innovations in cell studies to macro applications like enhancing drone communications. #EuMW2024 #eumweek2024 #radar
https://news.uci.edu/2023/11/27/uc-irvine-led-team-of-researchers-uncovers-battery-like-functions-of-mitochondria/
First-of-their-kind findings made possible by new generation of powerful microscopes
Irvine, Calif., Nov. 27, 2023 – Using new super-resolution microscopes, researchers at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Pennsylvania have for the first time observed electrical charge and discharge functions inside mitochondria isolated from cells.
A mitochondrion is a structure within a cell that uses aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate, an organic compound that provides energy to support many processes in living tissues. Medical and biomedical engineering researchers have sought greater understanding of mitochondria, recognizing their importance in human health and disease.
While many past research projects have studied the physical characteristics of these components as they exist within living cells, the UCI-led project is the first to use super-resolution microscopes to study live, extracellular mitochondria. By observing the changes in the mitochondrial membranes under different metabolic states this way, the researchers were able to witness the electrophysiological functioning of these living organelles. The team’s results were published in the journal ACS Nano.
“When we first started studying isolated mitochondria, we knew they behaved like a battery based on some work from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology and UCLA, but we could not control them very well inside the cell to probe them,” said co-author Peter Burke, UCI professor of electrical engineering and computer science. “Now we can control each individual electrical component and cause it to charge and discharge.”
He said the work was made possible by a new generation of super-resolution microscopes. Team members used all three leading methods – Airy microscopy, stimulated emission depletion microscopy and lattice structured illumination microscopy – in their study.
This enabled them to examine cristae, repeating serpentine structures within mitochondria that measure about 100 nanometers. The shortest wavelength of visible light is violet at about 380 nanometers, Burke said, so they needed powerful instruments – super-resolution microscopes – to probe the voltage distribution of something less than a third of that size.
“Imagine trying to study how the battery pack in a Tesla works, but you can only do it by driving the car,” he said. “You would not learn much about the battery pack inside the car.”
By taking mitochondria out of the cell and keeping them alive, Burke and his collaborators –
lead author ChiaHung Lee, UCI graduate student researcher in biomedical engineering, and Douglas Wallace of the University of Pennsylvania – were able to charge and discharge them.
“We could observe in detail how each individual part behaved as a single battery, much like how battery packs in drones and cars – which are many smaller batteries – individually combine to power the vehicle,” Burke said. “Interestingly, we found that the batteries rearrange themselves when they charge and discharge, a feature not found in regular batteries.”
He noted that his experiments proved what researchers had long thought while studying snapshots of frozen (dead) mitochondria: The internal structure changes in response to the metabolic needs of the cell. A mitochondrion can create and destroy its “batteries” (cristae) as needed. This shows that, unlike drones and Teslas, mitochondria can alter their internal shapes based on how much energy is needed by cells.
Burke said this work could have broad applications in human health, including studies on how humans age at the cellular level.
“Once we understand how they create energy, we can start to think of ways to modify this for improving human health and longevity,” he said.
The project was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Army Research Office.
BurkeLab featured on “The Circuit News partnered with the National Academy of Engineering”
March 23, 2023
The Circuit News partnered with the National Academy of Engineering featured a highlight of recent BurkeLab Guinness world record setting drone flight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvWejWxyUWI&t=51s