Morel
Prof. Morel Groper served between 1987 to 2011 in the Israel Navy as a design engineer, Navy Shipyard Chief Marine Engineer and finally as the Navy Head of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department. Through his career in the Israel Navy, he was directly involved in many of the naval architecture and marine engineering research and development efforts, including the development of advanced naval platforms and unique marine systems. Prof. Groper received his Ph.D. degree in 1999 from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. His research under the supervision of Professor Izhak Etsion focused on the cavitation phenomena in hydrodynamic bearings. In 2010 Prof. Groper retired from the Navy and launched his own R&D company to provide comprehensive mechanical engineering and naval architecture services to naval, marine, offshore and industrial sectors. In 2014 he joined the University of Haifa to promote his own research, as well as to assist with establishing and developing the new Hatter Department of Marine Technologies. Currently, Prof. Groper serves as the Head of this department at the Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa.
Research Group
Yuri
Lab Engineer
Yuri Katz received his B.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in 2004. Between 2004-2007 he served as an engineer in the IDF's land technological division, the motorized systems department. Following his release from service in the IDF, Yuri spent the next 10 years in different fields of engineering, both in the academia and the industry. He worked for 2 years in the Mechanical engineering Cryogenics laboratory at the Technion designing and building miniature cryo-coolers and motors followed by two years at Rion (subsidiary of Plasson) designing high precision plastic products. For the last 5 years Yuri worked as an operations manager and designer at EDAL Eng, an engineering and manufacturing company of custom made manufacturing machinery and equipment for the food and pharma industries. In 2017 Yuri decided to return to the school bench and pursue a masters in marine technologies. His thesis focuses on the design of a novel subsurface autonomous Lagrangian float for operation at depths of up to 300 meters.
Yevgeni
PhD Student
Yevgeni Gutnik is a former submariner in the Israeli Navy. He received his B.Sc. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel in 2015. In 2018 Yevgeni completed his master's degree (cum laude) in the department of Marine Technologies in the University of Haifa. His research was focused on dynamic modeling and control of AUVs to maneuvere in a complex environment. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in the department of Marine Technologies in the University of Haifa, promoting his research in the fields of autonomous underwater docking system, fusion of acoustic and visual sensor data and obstacle avoidance for AUVs. In addition, he is developing capabilities for AUVs for underwater survey missions and for aerial drones systems to be operated in the marine environment for multi-spectral imaging surveys.
Hadas
Master Student
Hadas Cohen received her B.Sc. degree in Mechanical engineering from Tel Aviv University, Israel in 2019. In 2017 she participated in the BioMeditech Technology Innovation program of entrepreneurship projects for clinically unmet needs and took part in a summer research fellowship in environmental studies in a study on renewable energy of Biofuel produced by Algae. In the years 2017-2019, Hadas worked as an R&D engineer intern in a medical device company, working from initial concept and design to production phase, machining prototyping, testing and release. In 2020 Hadas decided to join the lab and pursue a master's in marine technologies. Her thesis, under the supervision of Prof. Morel Groper, focuses on application of a nonlinear dynamic model to assess the effectiveness of motion mitigation devices for reducing the vertical motions of planing hulls.
Shani Heletz served in the Air Force between 2008-2011 as a Simulator Instructor of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). With her release from service and until 2017 she worked in the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in MALAT Division as a QA Engineer. At the same time, between 2013-2017, she studied and graduated B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the Ben Gurion University. Shani accomplished her Master in Mechanical Engineering at the Ben Gurion University, the PHM (Prognostic and Health Monitoring) research laboratory. Her research was mentored by Prof. Jacob Bortman and Dr. Renata Klein, in collaboration with Prof. Morel Groper. The experimental part of her research was performed in our lab. Currently Shani works as a Control Systems Engineer at Elbit Systems ELOP.
Eli
Master Student,Past
Elisei Shafer studied at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in the years 2010 - 2015, earning a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering with specialization in robotics and mechatronics. His final project received the Mark Darlow award in mechatronics. During his studies in the years 2014 – 2015 he worked as a mechanical engineering intern at Zickel Engineering. Upon graduating he worked at Augury Systems in 2016 - 2018 as a QA automation engineer. In 2018 Eli decided to return to the school bench and pursue a masters in marine technologies. His thesis focuses on the design and implementation of a novel path planing algorithm for the SPARUS II AUV.
Allaka
PhD
Gil
Master Student,Past
Gil Maor Served at a special reconnaissance in the IDF, between 1997-2000, He studied mechanical engineering between 2006-2010 At Ort braude College of engineering. He worked at Winflex Ltd, As a control engineer of a novel Wind Turbine design. Teaching Assistant and bachelor final project supervisor at Ort Braude college under DR, Orit Binyamin at the Biomechanics Lab. R&D and robotics Engineer at Aquatron robotic technology. Focusing on under water robotics. Following his love of sailing, Gil, returned to school bench, Gil peruses a Master’s degree under the supervision of Prof. Morel Groper, His Thesis involves the design of a vectored thruster for autonomous under water vehicles.
Shani
Master Student, Past
Dr. Hima Bindu Allaka holds bachelors in mechanical Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India. Later she worked at Nava Bharat Ventures Limited, India in the year 2012 on study of heat transfer phenomenon for reduction of skull in the ladle. She pursued an year (2013/2014) of Maters studies at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel under supervision of Amir Gat on Dynamics of elastic beams with embedded fluid-filled parallel-channel networks. In 2015 Allaka joined the department of Marine Technologies. Allaka pursued her Maters (suman cum laude) from the subsea engineering lab under Prof. Groper’s supervision and her research focused on motion assessment of planing crafts. Currently she is pursuing her PhD in the same lab and her research focuses on enhancing the sea keeping ability of high speed autonomous surface vehicles.
Tamar
Master Student,Past
Tamar Yahav received her B.Sc. degree in Aerospace engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in 2006. In the years 2006-2011 she served as a Flight Test Engineer at the Israeli Air Force's Flight test center. During Tamar's military service she earned her MA in System Engineering from the Technion (2009-2011). Following her release from service , Tamar worked for the Israel's defense industry for 7 years. First as a guidance and control engineer, than as a flight test engineer and finally as an experimental system engineer. During those years Tamar was involved in the operation and testing of some of the most innovating defense systems. In 2019 Tamar decided to join the lab and pursue a masters in marine technologies. Her thesis focuses on the design and implementation of a novel imaging surface autonomous floater.
Sharon
Master Student, Past
Sharon Farber earned a bachelor's degree of science in the field of mechanical engineering at Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel and took a special interest in R&D where he won a variety of competitions from BizTEC technological entrepreneurship program led by the Bronica Entrepreneurship Center at the Technion to Intel International Business Challenge at Dublin, Europe and the Technion Security Science and Technology Award two consecutive years in a row while volunteering at Engineering Without Borders, Nepal biogas carbon monitoring program. Following graduation, Sharon worked as an R&D engineer in a medical device company inventing and developing medical technologies and products to meet critical unmet needs participating in 3 patents of medical devices. In 2016, Sharon joined the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies as the Subsea Lab Engineer to support and develop knowledge, infrastructure and advanced equipment for practical research at sea and specifically in the deep sea while completing an M.Sc in the department focusing on Novel LARS (Launch and Recovery) method to improve the operation for small AUVs in a seaway. Sharon is mentoring a group of high school mechatronic students from Carmel Zvulun Regional High School which in 2018 won the National Robotics and Engineering Competition for developing an Arduino based autonomous glider.
Avishai
Master Student, Past
Avishai Dov serves in the Israel Navy as the Head of the Noise Control Branch, a part of the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department. Avishai received his Master degree in 2017 from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. His research, performed at our lab under the supervision of Morel Groper focused on the lubrication regime of a hydrodynamic bearing installed in the propulsion train of a marine craft.
