Engineering defense, with the help of butterflies
As a mechanical engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Phillip Daniel '13, SM '15, PhD '22, conducts research for the US Department of Defense that involves exploring the deepest oceans and the farthest skies.
Today, 90% of the ocean floor is unmapped. To add to the current picture, Daniel is on a team that focuses on sonar bathymetry, which uses transducers to send acoustic signals into the ocean. If objects are in the signal's path, the sound echoes back. The process he studies is called sparse aperture sonar, and it could enable improved underwater exploration for commercial industry and national defense.
Daniel also specializes in magnetic navigation, which could serve as an alternative to GPS for commercial enterprises and national defense. He uses monarch butterflies to explain. "They're able to migrate long distances and find the exact forest that their ancestors were born into. How? One theory is that they're able to sense the Earth's magnetic field. They have a compass in their head, and they can use it to get where they want to go. The question is: Can humanity take advantage of the Earth's magnetic field to accurately navigate without GPS?"
We can, he says, using iron and metallic deposits in the planet's crust. They emit magnetic field ripples, "almost like a fingerprint," that serve as a guide.