Sandians to hear what colleagues learned on projects that didn’t go as planned

Ihab El-Kady had made magic happen. And it wasn’t enough.

“It was almost a black magic request,” said Ihab, describing the problem presented by government sponsors. “They wanted a solution to channel power and data between two sealed containers without running a wire or punching a hole. The containers are completely sealed.”

Ihab and his collaborators answered this daunting challenge with an elegant solution. After initially viewing the containers as a barrier, Ihab’s team ultimately used the containers as the means of transmission, like tapping Morse code on the wall between two sealed rooms.

As product designs progressed and options were weighed, Ihab’s technology didn’t make the cut. Brilliant as it was, the solution hadn’t been rigorously tested in the field.

Ihab was disappointed but he understood.

“It’s OK for people to be skeptical,” said Ihab, a physicist whose teams won R&D 100 Awards for different technologies in 2019 and 2023. “You should welcome that skepticism because that allows your technology to climb the technology readiness level so that it can be employed safely and rigorously.”

Ihab will join other Sandians in sharing what they learned on projects that didn’t go as planned at the Labswide event Breakthroughs Favor the Bold on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 10-11 a.m. MT in Albuquerque’s Steve Schiff Auditorium and online. The event aims to further the Labs’ culture of innovation and the goals of the Labswide strategy, to accelerate innovation and lead in modern engineering. Labs Director James Peery will host and Maj. Gen. Jeannie Leavitt, who blazed trails as the U.S. Air Force’s first female fighter pilot and first woman to command a combat fighter wing, will make closing remarks.

Since the initial letdown, Ihab’s technology has found a host of applications and been proven in the field, including on the International Space Station, where it transmitted data and power between Faraday cages, enclosures that block some electromagnetic fields.

Ihab identified several lessons from this experience. Among them, to share developments with Sandia colleagues.

“There are lots of excellent engineers at Sandia,” Ihab said. “After you create the technology and improve the concept, you need to set it free. Hand it over to them. Team with them for rigorous evaluation and for catering to a specific application. Then you pivot to the next potential application.”