Concrete sensor manufacturer Wavelogix receives $500,000 grant from National Science Foundation

Funding from 1-year SBIR grant will enable the company to refine, scale Rebel concrete strength sensing system

2026-03-11

(Press-News.org) WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Wavelogix, a manufacturer of novel, patented concrete strength sensors invented at Purdue University’s College of Engineering, has received a $500,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase IIB grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships.

The grant builds upon an SBIR Phase II grant awarded in 2024. The Phase IIB project is scheduled to end in December 2026.

Luna Lu, Wavelogix’s founder, invented the Rebel concrete strength sensing system. The technology enables faster, data-driven decisions through real-time concrete strength monitoring.

“With this continued support from the NSF Phase IIB funding, we will refine and scale the Rebel concrete strength sensing system for broader industry adoption,” she said. “This funding is a critical step toward transforming how the construction industry monitors and validates concrete performance, moving from reactive testing to proactive, real-time intelligence.”

Lu is vice president of Purdue University’s Office of Industry Partnerships and the Indiana ACPA Professor in Concrete Paving and Materials Science in the Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering.

Wavelogix CEO Joe Turek said, “This investment from the NSF enables us to focus on the engineering and manufacturing improvements that will make the Rebel system ready for widespread commercial deployment. We’re at an inflection point where the technology can start delivering real value at scale for the construction industry.”

Lu disclosed the sensor system to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization, which applied for the patent to protect the intellectual property and licensed it to Wavelogix.

About Wavelogix

Wavelogix is a Purdue University spinout that has developed a proprietary Internet of Things sensing and data analytics platform for infrastructure quality testing. Its award-winning sensing technology provides real-time measurements of in-place concrete strength, allowing construction engineers to make accurate, data-driven decisions about materials selection, scheduling, budgets and resource allocation.

About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university’s academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2025, the office reported 161 deals executed with 269 technologies licensed, 479 invention disclosures received, and 267 U.S. and international patents received. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for more information.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

Media contacts: Steve Martin, sgmartin@prf.org, and Suzanne Florek, suzanne.f@wavelogix.tech

Photo caption 1: Luna Lu, Wavelogix founder and Purdue University professor, holds the Rebel concrete strength sensing system, which her lab invented to improve estimates of in-place strength of concrete structures. Wavelogix has received a $500,000 Phase IIB grant to develop the technology. (Purdue University photo/Greta Bell)

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

California communities’ recovery time between wildfire smoke events is shrinking

2026-03-11

Californians have long dealt with wildfire smoke as a seasonal fact of life, but those fires have become more intense and frequent, raising the profile of wildfire smoke as a public health issue. Now, a study led by researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds that the time between multi-day smoke events is shrinking — leaving communities with less time to recover before smoke returns. The new study, published March 11 in the journal GeoHealth, found that in California the window of cleaner air between smoke waves shrank by more than 60% from 2006 to 2020. The study also finds that ...

Augmented reality job coaching boosts performance by 79% for people with disabilities

2026-03-11

Employment can be a powerful gateway to independence, dignity and belonging. Yet for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), that gateway remains limited. Although work supports better health, social connection and a sense of purpose, only about 15% of individuals with IDD are employed in competitive, integrated work settings. This disparity persists despite federal programs like supported employment, which offers ongoing job coaching to help people with significant disabilities find and keep competitive jobs, and customized employment, which adapts job roles to match the strengths and needs of both employees and employers. This highlights a critical gap ...

Medical debt associated with deferring dental, medical, and mental health care

2026-03-11

Medical debt is associated with deferred dental care, medical care, and mental health care, even among people with health insurance, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study found that 42.3% of people with medical debt delayed dental care compared with 17.7% of those without—almost 2.4 times as many; 23.0% of people with medical debt delayed medical care compared with just 5.3% of those without—about 4.3 times as many; and 14% of people with medical ...

AAI appoints Anand Balasubramani as Chief Scientific Programs Officer

2026-03-11

The American Association of Immunologists (AAI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Anand Balasubramani, PhD, as its inaugural Chief Scientific Programs Officer (CSPO), effective March 25, 2026. This newly established executive role reflects AAI’s commitment to strengthening its scientific programming, expanding its thought leadership, and supporting the rapidly evolving field of immunology. Dr. Balasubramani brings more than a decade of leadership experience in scientific publishing, program development, and ...

Prior authorization may hinder access to lifesaving heart failure medications

2026-03-11

Prior authorization, a process that requires physicians to obtain approval from health care insurers before certain treatments are covered, may keep patients from filling prescriptions for two critical heart failure drugs, a new study shows. Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the analysis focused on angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors (ARNIs) and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, which are pillars of modern heart failure treatment. The drugs have no generic alternatives and can cost hundreds of dollars out of pocket. While they have been shown to substantially reduce the risk of death when added to standard therapy, ...

Scholars propose transparency, credit and accountability as key principles in scientific authorship guidelines

2026-03-11

Three principles - transparency, credit, and accountability – should form the foundation for “responsible authorship”, argues a working group comprising scholars, scientists and journal editors. In an article published March 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the group, led by PLOS’ Chief Scientific Officer Veronique Kiermer, states that contributions worthy of authorship should be determined by who has accountability for the research, and that all who claim the credit implied by authorship must assume that accountability. Who ...

Jeonbuk National University researchers develop DDINet for accurate and scalable drug-drug interaction prediction

2026-03-11

Managing complex medical conditions often requires the simultaneous use of multiple different drugs, referred to as polypharmacy. While necessary, this significantly increases the risk of drug–drug interactions (DDIs), which can either enhance or decrease therapeutic effects or trigger adverse drug reactions (ADRs), potentially leading to longer hospital stays or even life-threatening outcomes. In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned to deep learning models to predict DDIs. Although these models often outperform traditional methods, they are usually tested under idealized conditions, in which training and test data are randomly split, failing to reflect real-world ...

IEEE researchers achieve 20x signal boost in cerebral blood flow monitoring with next-generation interferometric diffusing wave spectroscopy

2026-03-11

Cerebral blood flow is essential for normal brain function and often perturbed in neurological disease. If one shines a source of coherent light on perfused tissue, the detected speckles, or “grains” of light fluctuate, or “dance”, at a rate proportional to blood flow in the volume sampled by the light. In brain tissue, this concept can be harnessed to measure the cerebral blood flow index (CBFi). However, to date, implementations of this principle for noninvasive adult human brain monitoring—collectively known as diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS)—have achieved limited brain sensitivity. This is because the brain is 1–2 ...

IEEE researchers achieve low-power ultrashort mid-IR pulse compression

2026-03-11

Ultrashort mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser pulses are essential for applications such as molecular spectroscopy, nonlinear microscopy, and biomedical imaging, but their generation often relies on complex and power-intensive systems that are difficult to implement outside of specialized laboratories. These systems usually require high pump powers, elaborate optical setups, and precise alignment, which can limit their widespread adoption and practical use in everyday research and clinical settings. In a paper made available online on 28 November 2025 and published in Volume 62, Issue 1 of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics on 01 February 2026, ...

Deep-sea natural compound targets cancer cells through a dual mechanism

2026-03-11

A collaborative research team led by Professor Kaori Sakurai at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, together with Associate Professor Hiroaki Itoh and Professor Masayuki Inoue at Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo, has uncovered a previously unknown mechanism of action of yaku’amide B, a structurally complex peptidic natural product derived from deep-sea sponge found in the waters near Yakushima Island, Japan. Natural products often exhibit multifaceted biological activities due to their structural complexity, interacting transiently with multiple biomolecules. Yaku’amide B ...

Concrete sensor manufacturer Wavelogix receives $500,000 grant from National Science Foundation

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: