C. Nataraj, PhD

Moritz Endowed Professor of Engineered Systems; Director, VCADS Research Center | College of Engineering | Villanova University

Villanova, PA, UNITED STATES

C. Nataraj, PhD, is an expert in unmanned vehicles, robotics, and diagnostic healthcare systems.

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Areas of Expertise (6)

Autonomous Vehicles

Drones

Machine Learning

Prognostic Tools

Robotics

Unmanned Vehicles

Biography

Dr. Nataraj is the Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Moritz, Sr. Endowed Chair position in Engineered Systems, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Director of the Villanova Center for Analytics of Dynamic Systems (VCADS) at Villanova College of Engineering. Unmanned vehicles and robotics is Dr. Nataraj's primary area of specialty. Dr. Nataraj serves as faculty adviser for the College of Engineering' s student team to compete in RobotX, an annual, selective international competition on autonomous surface vehicles, organized by the Office of Naval Research and the Association of Unmanned Vehicles International to foster and stimulate research in marine autonomy. Nataraj has received several grants from the Office of Naval Research to investigate the feasibility of developing and testing unmanned ocean vehicles.

Knowledgeable about prognostics, an engineering discipline that predicts the future condition of a component or system, he would be a good source for information on machinery maintenance and failure, as well as cutting-edge diagnostic healthcare systems.

Education (3)

Arizona State University: PhD

Arizona State University: MS

Indian Institute of Technology: BS

Select Accomplishments (3)

Villanova University Outstanding Faculty Research Award (professional)

2013

Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Moritz, Sr. Endowed Chair in Systems Engineering (professional)

2012

Dr. C. Nataraj Appointed to the Editorial Boards of Two Scholarly Journals (professional)

2012 In recognition of his expertise and accomplishments in a number of key research areas, two prominent scholarly journals invited Dr. C. Nataraj, Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering, to join their editorial boards in December. As a member of the editorial board for the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems and the Journal of Applied Nonlinear Dynamics, he joins dozens of highly-esteemed researchers from around the world.

Links (2)

Affiliations (2)

Elected Member of the Franklin Institute's Committee of the Sciences and the Arts
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Turbo Research Foundation

Select Media Appearances (10)

Negative-Pressure Ventilator Shows Promise in New Study

Reuters Health online

2021-01-26

The combination of negative-pressure ventilation and negative end-expiratory pressure produced effective ventilation; resting tidal volume was exceeded by applying -4 cm H2O of extra-thoracic negative pressure. None of the volunteers had ventilator dyssynchrony and all reported that the experience was comfortable. Nurses reported the chamber could be positioned and moved quickly by two people. Dr. C. Nataraj, Director, Villanova Center for Analytics of Dynamic Systems at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, commented in an email to Reuters Health, "There are clearly some advantages to the Exovent system...It is much less complicated than typical forced ventilation systems. The patient can be awake, eat and generally be 'in control.'"

Inside the Race to Build a Better $500 Emergency Ventilator

Kaiser Health News online

2020-08-24

As the coronavirus crisis lit up this spring, headlines about how the U.S. could innovate its way out of a pending ventilator shortage landed almost as hard and fast as the pandemic itself. The New Yorker featured “The MacGyvers Taking on the Ventilator Shortage,” an effort initiated not by a doctor or engineer but a blockchain activist. The University of Minnesota created a cheap ventilator called the Coventor; MIT had the MIT Emergency Ventilator; Rice University, the ApolloBVM. NASA created the VITAL, and a fitness monitor company got in the game with Fitbit Flow. The price tags varied from $150 for the Coventor to $10,000 for the Fitbit Flow — all significantly less than premium commercially available hospital ventilators, which can run $50,000 apiece. Around the same time, C. Nataraj, a Villanova College of Engineering professor, was hearing from front-line doctors at Philadelphia hospitals fearful of running out of ventilators for COVID-19 patients. Compelled to help, Nataraj put together a volunteer SWAT team of engineering and medical talent to invent the ideal emergency ventilator. The goal: build something that could operate with at least 80% of the function of a typical hospital ventilator, but at 20% or less of the cost.

This Team Made a $500 Ventilator—but How Will It Be Used?

WIRED online

2020-08-21

As the coronavirus crisis lit up this spring, headlines about how the US could innovate its way out of a pending ventilator shortage landed almost as hard and fast as the pandemic itself. The New Yorker featured “The MacGyvers Taking on the Ventilator Shortage,” about an effort initiated not by a doctor or engineer but a blockchain activist. The University of Minnesota created a cheap ventilator called the Coventor; MIT had the MIT Emergency Ventilator; Rice University, the ApolloBVM. NASA created the Vital, and a fitness monitor company got in the game with Fitbit Flow. The price tags varied from $150 for the Coventor to $10,000 for the Fitbit Flow—all significantly less than premium commercially available hospital ventilators, which can run $50,000 apiece. Around the same time, C. Nataraj, a Villanova College of Engineering professor, was hearing from frontline doctors at Philadelphia hospitals fearful of running out of ventilators for Covid-19 patients. Compelled to help, Nataraj put together a volunteer SWAT team of engineering and medical talent to invent the ideal emergency ventilator. The goal: Build something that could operate with at least 80 percent of the function of a typical hospital ventilator, but at 20 percent or less of the cost.

As Coronavirus Spreads Globally, These Researchers Are Designing Ventilators That Cost Less Than $1,000

Forbes online

2020-04-30

In the beginning of April, Dr. C. Nataraj, an engineering professor at Villanova University, gathered a team of 20 faculty and students, as well as experts from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Geisinger Health System. Their goal? To create a low-cost, emergency ventilator. Within three weeks, they made their first prototype of the NovaVent, a machine that automatically compresses an airbag (called an Ambu bag) and links to a ventilator circuit that includes a component for intubation. Nataraj and his team are partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to get the ventilator manufactured by local idle businesses for a price under $1,000. “A lot of medical devices are out of reach for most of the world,” says Nataraj about the importance of low-cost ventilators, “and I think a lot of people like us need to step up and do something about it.” Nataraj, 60, and his colleagues are among several teams across the country at universities such as Georgia Tech, UC Davis and the University of Minnesota that are scrambling to design low-cost ventilators for the coronavirus pandemic. These machines include renovated ventilators from the 1950s, self-pumping bag masks and a device that can supply air to two patients at once. While some of these devices will stay in the U.S., many are designed to be easily manufactured overseas in countries that may need them more. ...

PA’s Hospitals, Universities, and Companies Fight COVID-19

Keystone Edge online

2020-04-20

Villanova University is in the final phases of creating a low-cost, low-parts ventilator called NovaVent. The machine aims to fill the massive gap in the number of available machines compared to the projected number of patients who may need one as the virus spikes across the United States. Dr. C. Nataraj, a professor in the university’s mechanical engineering department, says the device is working in the lab with a CPR dummy lung and they will test it again at CHOP with a sophisticated breathing lung simulator called ASL 5000. “That test should give us real confidence in how NovaVent would perform with real patients,” says Dr. Nataraj.

CHOP Spinoff, Villanova Professor Share the Same Goal: Produce a Low-Cost Ventilator

Philadelphia Business Journal online

2020-04-13

Villanova Teams Up with Philadelphia-area Hospitals to Build Low-Cost Emergency Ventilators

KYW Newsradio 1060 radio

2020-04-07

Villanova University is teaming up with Children’s Hospital and Geisinger Medical Center to create design plans for low-cost ventilators, and testing and validation could be done by the end of this week. Dr. C. Nataraj, a mechanical engineering professor at Villanova, says the goal is to build an emergency ventilator. “What we aim to build is a low-cost, anywhere between $600 and $800, which uses as few parts as possible. And the reason you want to do that is there are a lot of wrinkles in the supply chain of parts,” Nataraj explained. He says if parts are local and manufacturing is local, costs are lower and it helps the local economy. Nataraj says the design would easily connect with existing ventilation systems, and would be open-sourced, meaning freely distributed.

Fighting Remote

National Guard Magazine print

2019-03-06

“Most military tasks, from reconnaissance to warfighting, can only be accomplished by a group of operators,” says C. “Nat” Nataraj, an engineering professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia who studies robots under a military grant. “Different autonomous vehicles may carry different payloads or have different capabilities. Maybe one collects information and another is a communications hub,” he says. “Autonomy will involve all these different functionalities working together. The military relies on teams to do things well, and that will extend to autonomy.”

Doctors Work With Engineers to Improve Diagnoses

U.S. News & World Report online

2016-11-15

A partnership between engineers at Villanova University and doctors at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia underscores how data-driven approaches using physics, math and computer algorithms can help doctors better diagnose and predict medical conditions.

A Villanova Team Takes Robotics on the Water

Philadelphia Inquirer print

2014-10-10

More than seven months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the search for the plane is expected to resume in the Indian Ocean this month with crews trolling 23,000 square miles. Might the kernel of a better approach be found in a pond in Phoenixville? That is where Villanova University students are tinkering with a robotic boat, a two-pontoon craft equipped with a camera, a laser, and other electronics that let the boat locate obstacles and navigate on its own … The faculty advisor from Villanova is C. “Nat” Nataraj, a professor of mechanical engineering who has been working on the challenge of robotic boats for more than a decade.

Research Grants (3)

Dr. C. Nataraj Receives $1 Million Grant from Office of Naval Research

Office of Naval Research (ONR) $1.0 Million

2022

Dr. C. Nataraj Awarded $625,124 Grant for Research on Nonlinear Systems

Office of Naval Research (ONR) $625,124

2015

Dr. C. Nataraj Awarded Funding to Study PVL in Infants

National Institutes of Health $1.9 Million

2011

Select Academic Articles (6)

A machine learning approach to predict quality of life changes in patients with Parkinson's Disease

Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology

Tyler D Alexander, Chandrasekhar Nataraj, Chengyuan Wu

2023

Nonlinear dynamic epidemiological analysis of effects of vaccination and dynamic transmission on COVID-19

Nonlinear Dynamics

Prashant N. Kambali, Amirhassan Abbasi & C. Nataraj