Four Faculty from Riccio College of Engineering Obtain U.S. Patents

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Four faculty members from the Riccio College of Engineering (CoE) led four of the 12 UMass Amherst research teams that obtained U.S. patents from January 1 to June 30 of 2026. The CoE researchers who received patents for their pioneering innovations were Associate Professor Amir Arbabi of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, ECE Associate Adjunct Professor Tongping Liu, ECE Armstrong Professional Development Professor Jun Yao, and Professor Chul Park of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department (CEE).

Arbabi partnered with Seunghoon Han and Hyun Sung to receive a patent for an innovative, ultracompact display apparatus used for wearable display devices: See-through type display apparatus and electronic device including the same (with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.). 

As the team explains the need for this patent, “Recently, interest has grown in ultracompact display apparatuses that are to be used as wearable display devices for implementing virtual-reality devices, augmented-reality devices, and the like. A solution to make ultracompact display apparatuses lighter and thinner while maintaining the quality of an image…has been continuously sought, and a light waveguide-based optical system has been used as an example thereof.”

The patent involves an innovative, see-through-type, display apparatus that “includes an image projector configured to output image light, a waveguide configured to receive the image-light output from the image projector and transmit the image light to a user's view, and a first lens having a negative refractive power and a second lens having a positive refractive power, which are arranged on both surfaces of the waveguide.”

Liu and his collaborators – Jiaxun Tang, Hanmei Yang, and Jin Zhou – obtained a patent for their pioneering method for correctly and efficiently identifying types of cache misses: Classification of different types of cache misses.

As the team explains the problem addressed by its patented technique, “Effective utilization of the cache is the key to boost the performance of applications…It is important to pinpoint cache misses latent in applications so that programmers could reduce cache misses by re-organizing the data.”

According to Liu and his team, their patented methodology for solving the thorny issue of classifying cache misses involves “detecting a susceptible instruction of a program with frequent cache misses [grounded] upon performance-monitoring, units-based, coarse-grain sampling; collecting a memory-access pattern of the susceptible instruction using breakpoint-based fine-grain sampling; and classifying the type of cache miss associated with the susceptible instruction. The type of cache miss can [then] be classified as a capacity miss, a conflict miss, or a coherence miss using the memory-access pattern of the susceptible instruction.”

Yao and his colleague Xiaomeng Liu patented their cutting-edge methodology for harvesting energy from ambient moisture: Devices and methods for energy harvesting from air humidity.

According to Yao and Liu, hydroelectricity is an important part of clean energy, but geological conditions limit its broad applicability. However, “the water in air, or humidity, can be much more accessible and forms a large, ubiquitous, sustainable energy source.” 

Yao and Liu received a patent for providing several energy-harvesting devices and methods which “can be more easily manufacturable, more easily customizable, and more easily deployable than existing alternatives.”

As Yao and Liu explain, “A method of harvesting energy from ambient moisture includes exposing an adsorption layer comprising a nanoporous material to ambient moisture and, with at least two electrodes in operative arrangement with the adsorption layer, generating a voltage differential on exposure of the adsorption layer to the ambient moisture. The method can further include storing energy from current supplied by the adsorption layer and at least two electrodes.”

Park has partnered with Dr. Joseph Gikonyo and Dr. Ahmed Abouhend in CEE to patent their oxygenic photogranule (OPG) processes, which reduce energy consumption while sequestering carbon from wastewater and the atmosphere during treatment: System and method for cultivation of oxygenic photogranule.

As the CEE inventors explain, “Wastewater treatment is an energy-intensive procedure, in particular for aerobic wastewater treatment to remove sewage organic matter and nitrogen, which requires a substantial energy input to aerate the wastewater in order to dissolve oxygen gas. It is typical in the United States for wastewater treatment to take up as much as one-third of the total energy usage for many municipalities.”

The team addresses this vital issue with its newly patented systems and methods for cultivating oxygenic, biologically-active, bioaggregate granules for wastewater treatment. Notably, these systems can be integrated into conventional continuous-flow treatment tanks, making them suitable for both mainstream and side-stream applications at wastewater-treatment plants.” (October 2026)