Wireless Institute Announces 2026 Pedtke Fund Award Winners

The Wireless Institute is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 Pedtke Fund award winners. This year’s awardees exemplify the interdisciplinary spirit of the Wireless Institute, spanning hardware design, machine learning, wireless systems, and biomedical applications.

The application cycle saw a strong and highly competitive pool of proposals, reflecting both the breadth and depth of research taking place across the Institute. Due to the high quality of submissions and level of interest, four outstanding projects were selected for funding.

The 2026 Pedtke Fund awardees, listed in no particular order, are:

Luke Scholler (Undergraduate Student)
Project: Radiohound FPGA/SBC Proof of Concept
Working with Professor Nick Laneman in the Wireless Institute’s Radiohound lab, Scholler’s project addresses a critical hardware limitation in the Radiohound platform—a distributed, low-cost spectrum analysis system. The current single-board computer, now over a decade old, has become a bottleneck as the system expands into higher frequency ranges. Scholler proposes a modular and cost-effective redesign that integrates a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 with an AMD Artix-7 FPGA via PCI Express. This approach aims to significantly improve data transfer speeds while maintaining flexibility and affordability for future upgrades.

Yiwen Lu (Graduate Student)
Project: Deep Learning for Underwater Acoustic Environment Estimation
Advised by Professor Toros Arikan, Lu’s research explores how deep learning can be used to interpret complex acoustic environments. Using the Neuro-COTANS framework, the project transforms time-of-arrival data into boundary-enhanced images and applies neural networks to estimate environmental structure. By treating multipath reflections as useful signals rather than interference, this work advances techniques relevant to wireless sensing, radar, and autonomous systems. The project also emphasizes hands-on, end-to-end student training in data collection, signal processing, and machine learning.

Evaristo Campos (Undergraduate Student)
Project: XR WiFi Performance
Under the guidance of Dr. Aaron Striegel, Campos is investigating how extended reality (XR) devices impact wireless network performance. By comparing Meta smart glasses with and without display capabilities, the project analyzes differences in bandwidth usage across frequencies, environments, and connection types. The findings will help inform how emerging XR technologies may shape future WiFi demands and performance expectations.

Ana Flavia Davison de Almeida Barreto (Graduate Student)
Project: Wireless Optical Sensor for Intravascular Monitoring of Total Hemoglobin Volume
Working in Professor Thomas O’Sullivan’s lab, Barreto is developing a wireless optical sensing system to monitor total hemoglobin concentration as an indicator of fluid levels in heart failure patients. The project combines optical system design, physiological modeling, and wireless power transfer. Initial phases focus on validating measurement sensitivity using a wired prototype, followed by the development of a wireless system capable of sustained operation. This research has the potential to enable earlier detection of congestion and improve patient outcomes.

This year’s Pedtke Fund awardees were highlighted as part of the Wireless Institute’s 2026 Notre Dame Day, underscoring the critical role of philanthropic support in advancing student research and innovation. Their projects were featured as examples of how donor investment directly enables hands-on, high-impact learning experiences within the Wireless Institute. 

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Story by Julia Hahn. The Wireless Institute at Notre Dame. For more information on this story or the Institute contact us at wireless@nd.edu