Bio-Inspire Surface - Drag Reduction Technology
Turbulence is still considered an open issue due to its complexity and lack of a generic theory; however, it is a very common phenomenon and plays a key role in many industrial and engineering applications. One of the most critical problems in turbulent flows is its higher drag compared to a laminar flow.

Burak Aksak and Luciano Castillo
US Patent App. 14/774,767
  • Drag Reducing Agents (DRA) in pipelines: due to suppression of the energy dissipation by turbulent eddies near the pipe wall in turbulent flow (up to 50%)
  • Trapping a fluid in a porous media induce a slip velocity at the interface and reduces the shear. This may lead to drag reduction
  • Nature (biomimetic)
    -  Shark’s denticles (flow laminarization)
    ​-  Lotus leaf (hydrophic, non-wetting)
Luciano Castillo, PhD
​Humberto Bocanegra, PhD
Burak Aksak, PhD
​Leonardo P. Chamorro, PhD

Med-Vi, LLC

#1- Med-vi, LLC delivers intuitive, yet  highly sophisticated artificial intelligence tools to empower users and their Health Care providers.
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#2- To Provide regulatory compliant HIPPA database system- while enabling advanced data analytics to carry out ground-breaking research & development.
 
#3- Provide multi-sensor devices (urinary, infrared with Digi-Nurse as HUB for all of them) that capture medical grade data (accuracy)allowing health care providers to deliver improved,  tailored treatment for users, enhancing their quality of life

​INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

 Invention Disclosures:
1. Urinary Optical Lab. Invention Disclosure, Issued 2016 at Texas Tech University,
Lubbock, Texas, (2016). The non-invasive, non-contact nature of our testing
technique, reduces the chances of cross contamination and avoids the
use of sterilized disposable containers used to collect and transport urine. The
proposed device will make it less expensive and more convenient to monitor
kidney (and overall) health more frequently. Additionally, by detecting anomalies
early on, it will reduce the cost of treatment.
2. Gecko Micro-Solar Surface. Invention Disclosure, Issued 2015 at Texas Tech
University, Lubbock, Texas, (2015). This technology uses bio-inspired surface
from the Gecko with the goal to significantly improve the efficiency of solar
panels. Current simulations show that it is possible to double the efficiency of
existing solar panels by using this micro-surface.
3. Bio-inspired Surface for Drag Reduction. Invention Disclosure, Issued 2012 at
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, (2012). Provisional Patent Application
submitted to USPTO in 2014. The technology was license to Atlas in order
to deploy the technology to car/trucking industry including NASCAR and Formula
1. Existing testing and experiments showed evidence of about 30% drag
reduction.
4. Medical Visual Interface. Invention Disclosure, Issued 2014 at Texas Tech University,
and Provisional Patent Application was submitted to USPTO in February
2014. Authors: Luciano Castillo, Namrata Tapase, and Suhas Pol. The
purpose of this invention is to allow easy access to medical information in the
event of an accident, trauma patients and treatment of any disease including
terminal conditions. The Medical Visual Interface integrates existing Electronic
Medical Records (EMR) into a single platform with easy visual and interactive
interface. This technology resulted in a startup, Med-Vi, LLC co-founded by
Castillo in 2014.
5. D-1189: Solar Bio-inspire Micro-Surfaces, (2015). Invention Disclosure, Issued
2015 at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. Authors: Luciano Castillo, Ali
Doosttalab and Burak Aksak. In this technology we are using bio-inspired surfaces
to increase thermal efficiency of solar panels.
6. Biometrics Displaying and Navigation Enabled Swimming Goggles. Invention
Disclosure, Issued 2014 at Texas Tech University. Authors: Luciano Castillo
and Martin Fajardo.
Patent Submitted: Provisional Patent Applications
1. Surface Coating for Reduction of Noise and Vibrations, Inventors: Burak Aksak,
Humberto Bocanegra Evans, Luciano Castillo. Submitted in September
2018
2. Bio-inspired Surface for Drag Reduction Applications-D-0911.
Authors: B. Aksak and L. Castillo, (2014).
3. Medical Visual Interface. Graphical User Interface System for Interactive, Hierarchical,
Multi-Panel Comprehension of Multi-Format Data-D-1117.
Authors: Luciano Castillo, Namrata Tapase, and Suhas Pol. (2015).
4. Optical Probe for Real Time Chemical Analysis on a Liquid Jet- D-1270.
Authors: H. Bocanegra Evans and L. Castillo, (2017).