Scholarly Work - Electrical & Computer Engineering

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/8814

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Water Vapor Profiling using a Widely Tunable, Amplified Diode Laser Based Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL)
(2009-04) Nehrir, Amin R.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Carlsten, John L.; Obland, Michael D.; Shaw, Joseph A.
A differential absorption lidar (DIAL) instrument for automated profiling of water vapor in the lower troposphere has been designed, tested, and is in routine operation at Montana State University. The laser transmitter for the DIAL instrument uses a widely tunable external cavity diode laser (ECDL) to injection seed two cascaded semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) to produce a laser transmitter that accesses the 824–841-nm spectral range. The DIAL receiver utilizes a 28-cm-diameter Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope; an avalanche photodiode (APD) detector; and a narrowband optical filter to collect, discriminate, and measure the scattered light. A technique of correcting for the wavelength-dependent incident angle upon the narrowband optical filter as a function of range has been developed to allow accurate water vapor profiles to be measured down to 225 m above the surface. Data comparisons using the DIAL instrument and collocated radiosonde measurements are presented demonstrating the capabilities of the DIAL instrument.
Using hyperspectral plant signatures for CO2 leak detection during the 2008 ZERT CO2 sequestration field experiment in Bozeman, MT
(2010-03) Male, Erin J.; Pickles, William L.; Silver, Eli A.; Hoffmann, Gary D.; Lewicki, Jennifer; Apple, Martha E.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Burton, Elizabeth A.
Hyperspectral plant signatures can be used as a short-term, as well as long-term (100-year timescale) monitoring technique to verify that CO2 sequestration fields have not been compromised. An influx of CO2 gas into the soil can stress vegetation, which causes changes in the visible to near-infrared reflectance spectral signature of the vegetation. For 29 days, beginning on July 9, 2008, pure carbon dioxide gas was released through a 100-m long horizontal injection well, at a flow rate of 300 kg day−1. Spectral signatures were recorded almost daily from an unmown patch of plants over the injection with a “FieldSpec Pro” spectrometer by Analytical Spectral Devices, Inc. Measurements were taken both inside and outside of the CO2 leak zone to normalize observations for other environmental factors affecting the plants. Four to five days after the injection began, stress was observed in the spectral signatures of plants within 1 m of the well. After approximately 10 days, moderate to high amounts of stress were measured out to 2.5 m from the well. This spatial distribution corresponded to areas of high CO2 flux from the injection. Airborne hyperspectral imagery, acquired by Resonon, Inc. of Bozeman, MT using their hyperspectral camera, also showed the same pattern of plant stress. Spectral signatures of the plants were also compared to the CO2 concentrations in the soil, which indicated that the lower limit of soil CO2 needed to stress vegetation is between 4 and 8% by volume.
A shallow subsurface controlled release facility in Bozeman, Montana, USA, for testing near surface CO2 detection techniques and transport models
(2010-03) Spangler, Lee H.; Dobeck, Laura M.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Nehrir, Amin R.; Humphries, Seth D.; Barr, Jamie L.; Keith, Charlie J.; Shaw, Joseph A.; Rouse, Joshua H.; Cunningham, Alfred B.; Benson, Sally M.; Oldenburg, Curtis M.; Lewicki, Jennifer L.; Wells, Arthur W.; Diehl, J. Rodney; Strazisar, Brian R.; Fessenden, Julianna E.; Rahn, Thom A.; Amonette, James E.; Barr, Jon L.; Pickles, William L.; Jacobson, James D.; Silver, Eli A.; Male, Erin J.; Rauch, Henry W.; Gullickson, Kadie S.; Trautz, Robert; Kharaka, Yousif; Birkholzer, Jens; Wielopolski, Lucien
A controlled field pilot has been developed in Bozeman, Montana, USA, to study near surface CO2 transport and detection technologies. A slotted horizontal well divided into six zones was installed in the shallow subsurface. The scale and CO2 release rates were chosen to be relevant to developing monitoring strategies for geological carbon storage. The field site was characterized before injection, and CO2 transport and concentrations in saturated soil and the vadose zone were modeled. Controlled releases of CO2 from the horizontal well were performed in the summers of 2007 and 2008, and collaborators from six national labs, three universities, and the U.S. Geological Survey investigated movement of CO2 through the soil, water, plants, and air with a wide range of near surface detection techniques. An overview of these results will be presented.
Eye-Safe Diode-Laser-Based Micropulse Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) for Water Vapor Profiling in the Lower Troposphere
(2011-02) Nehrir, Amin R.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Carlsten, John L.
A second-generation diode-laser-based master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configured micropulse differential absorption lidar (DIAL) instrument for profiling of lower-tropospheric water vapor is presented. The DIAL transmitter is based on a continuous wave (cw) external cavity diode laser (ECDL) master oscillator that is used to injection seed two cascaded tapered semiconductor optical power amplifiers, which deliver up to 2-μJ pulse energies over a 1-μs pulse duration at 830 nm with an average power of ∼40 mW at a pulse repetition frequency of 20 kHz. The DIAL receiver utilizes a commercial 28-cm-diameter Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope, a 250-pm narrowband optical filter, and a fiber-coupled single-photon-counting Avalanche photodiode (APD) detector, yielding a far-field full-angle field of view of 170 μrad. A detailed description of the second-generation Montana State University (MSU) DIAL instrument is presented. Water vapor number density profiles and time–height cross sections collected with the water vapor DIAL instrument are also presented and compared with collocated radiosonde measurements, demonstrating the instruments ability to measure night- and daytime water vapor profiles in the lower troposphere.
Observational Studies of Atmospheric Aerosols over Bozeman, Montana, Using a Two-Color Lidar, a Water Vapor DIAL, a Solar Radiometer, and a Ground-Based Nephelometer over a 24-h Period
(2011-03) Repasky, Kevin S.; Reagan, John A.; Nehrir, Amin R.; Hoffman, David S.; Thomas, Michael J.; Carlsten, John L.; Shaw, Joseph A.; Shaw, Glenn E.
Coordinated observational data of atmospheric aerosols were collected over a 24-h period between 2300 mountain daylight time (MDT) on 27 August 2009 and 2300 MDT on 28 August 2009 at Bozeman, Montana (45.66°N, 111.04°W, elevation 1530 m) using a collocated two-color lidar, a diode-laser-based water vapor differential absorption lidar (DIAL), a solar radiometer, and a ground-based nephelometer. The optical properties and spatial distribution of the atmospheric aerosols were inferred from the observational data collected using the collocated instruments as part of a closure experiment under dry conditions with a relative humidity below 60%. The aerosol lidar ratio and aerosol optical depth retrieved at 532 and 1064 nm using the two-color lidar and solar radiometer agreed with one another to within their individual uncertainties while the scattering component of the aerosol extinction measured using the nephelometer matched the scattering component of the aerosol extinction retrieved using the 532-nm channel of the two-color lidar and the single-scatter albedo retrieved using the solar radiometer. Using existing aerosol models developed with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data, a thin aerosol layer observed over Bozeman was most likely identified as smoke from forest fires burning in California; Washington; British Columbia, Canada; and northwestern Montana. The intrusion of the thin aerosol layer caused a change in the atmospheric radiative forcing by a factor of 1.8 ± 0.5 due to the aerosol direct effect.
Optical Characterization of Continental and Biomass Burning Aerosols over Bozeman Montana: A Case Study of the Aerosol Direct Effect
(2011-11) Nehrir, Amin R.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Reagan, John A.; Carlsten, John L.
Atmospheric aerosol optical properties were observed from 21 to 27 September 2009 over Bozeman, Montana, during a transitional period in which background polluted rural continental aerosols and well‐aged biomass‐burning aerosols were the dominant aerosol types of extremely fresh biomass‐burning aerosols resulting from forest fires burning in the northwestern United States and Canada. Aerosol optical properties and relative humidity profiles were retrieved using an eye‐safe micropulse water vapor differential absorption lidar (DIAL) (MP‐DIAL), a single‐channel backscatter lidar, a CIMEL solar radiometer as part of the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), a ground‐based integrating nephelometer, and aerosol products from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Terra and Aqua. Aerosol optical depths (AODs) measured during the case study ranged between 0.03 and 0.17 (0.015 and 0.075) at 532 nm (830 nm) as episodic combinations of fresh and aged biomass‐burning aerosols dominated the optical depth of the pristinely clean background air. Here, a pristinely clean background refers to very low AOD conditions, not that the aerosol scattering and absorption properties are necessarily representative of a clean aerosol type. Diurnal variability in the aerosol extinction to backscatter ratio (Sa) of the background atmosphere derived from the two lidars, which ranged between 55 and 95 sr (50 and 90 sr) at 532 nm (830 nm), showed good agreement with retrievals from AERONET sun and sky measurements over the same time period but were consistently higher than some aerosol models had predicted. Sa measured during the episodic smoke events ranged on average from 60 to 80 sr (50 to 70 sr) at 532 nm (830 nm) while the very fresh biomass‐burning aerosols were shown to exhibit significantly lower Sa ranging between 20 and 40 sr. The shortwave direct radiative forcing that was due to the intrusion of biomass‐burning aerosols was calculated to be on average −10 W/m2 and was shown to compare favorably with regional‐scale forcing calculations using MODIS‐Terra and AERONET data in an effort to assess the accuracy of estimating the regional‐scale aerosol direct radiative forcing effect using aerosol optical properties measured from a single rural site such as Bozeman, Montana.
Micropulse Water Vapor Differential Absorption Lidar: Transmitter Design and Performance
(2012-10) Nehrir, Amin R.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Carlsten, John L.
An all diode-laser-based micropulse differential absorption lidar (DIAL) laser transmitter for tropospheric water vapor and aerosol profiling is presented. The micropulse DIAL (MPD) transmitter utilizes two continuous wave (cw) external cavity diode lasers (ECDL) to seed an actively pulsed, overdriven tapered semiconductor optical amplifier (TSOA). The MPD laser produces up to 7 watts of peak power over a 1 µs pulse duration (7 µJ) and a 10 kHz pulse repetition frequency. Spectral switching between the online and offline seed lasers is achieved on a 1Hz basis using a fiber optic switch to allow for more accurate sampling of the atmospheric volume between the online and offline laser shots. The high laser spectral purity of greater than 0.9996 coupled with the broad tunability of the laser transmitter will allow for accurate measurements of tropospheric water vapor in a wide range of geographic locations under varying atmospheric conditions. This paper describes the design and performance characteristics of a third generation MPD laser transmitter with enhanced laser performance over the previous generation DIAL system.
Radiometry and the Friis transmission equation
(American Association of Physics Teachers, 2013) Shaw, Joseph
To more effectively tailor courses involving antennas, wireless communications, optics, and applied electromagnetics to a mixed audience of engineering and physics students, the Friis transmission equation—which quantifies the power received in a free-space communication link—is developed from principles of optical radiometry and scalar diffraction. This approach places more emphasis on the physics and conceptual understanding of the Friis equation than is provided by the traditional derivation based on antenna impedance. Specifically, it shows that the wavelength-squared dependence can be attributed to diffraction at the antenna aperture and illustrates the important difference between the throughput (product of area and solid angle) of a single antenna or telescope and the throughput of a transmitter-receiver pair.
Correcting for focal-plane-array temperature dependence in microbolometer infrared cameras lacking thermal stabilization
(2013-01) Nugent, Paul W.; Shaw, Joseph A.; Pust, Nathan J.
Advances in microbolometer detectors have led to the development of infrared cameras that operate without active temperature stabilization. The response of these cameras varies with the temperature of the camera’s focal plane array (FPA). This paper describes a method for stabilizing the camera’s response through software processing. This stabilization is based on the difference between the camera’s response at a measured temperature and at a reference temperature. This paper presents the mathematical basis for such a correction and demonstrates the resulting accuracy when applied to a commercially available long-wave infrared camera. The stabilized camera was then radiometrically calibrated so that the digital response from the camera could be related to the radiance or temperature of objects in the scene. For FPA temperature deviations within ±7.2°C changing by 0.5°C/min, this method produced a camera calibration with spatial-temporal rms variability of 0.21°C, yielding a total calibration uncertainty of 0.38°C limited primarily by the 0.32°C uncertainty in the blackbody source emissivity and temperature.
Infrared cloud imager development for atmospheric optical communication characterization, and measurements at the JPL Table Mountain Facility
(2013-02) Nugent, Paul W.; Shaw, Joseph A.; Piazzolla, S.
The continuous demand for high data return in deep space and near-Earth satellite missions has led NASA and international institutions to consider alternative technologies for high-data-rate communications. One solution is the establishment of widebandwidth Earth–space optical communication links, which require (among other things) a nearly obstruction-free atmospheric path. Considering the atmospheric channel, the most common and most apparent impairments on Earth–space optical communication paths arise from clouds. Therefore, the characterization of the statistical behavior of cloud coverage for optical communication ground station candidate sites is of vital importance. In this article, we describe the development and deployment of a ground-based, long-wavelength infrared cloud imaging system able to monitor and characterize the cloud coverage. This system is based on a commercially available camera with a 62-deg diagonal field of view. A novel internal-shutter-based calibration technique allows radiometric calibration of the camera, which operates without a thermoelectric cooler. This cloud imaging system provides continuous day–night cloud detection with constant sensitivity. The cloud imaging system also includes data-processing algorithms that calculate and remove atmospheric emission to isolate cloud signatures, and enable classification of clouds according to their optical attenuation. Measurements of long-wavelength infrared cloud radiance are used to retrieve the optical attenuation (cloud optical depth due to absorption and scattering) in the wavelength range of interest from visible to near-infrared, where the cloud attenuation is quite constant. This article addresses the specifics of the operation, calibration, and data processing of the imaging system that was deployed at the NASA/JPL Table Mountain Facility (TMF) in California. Data are reported from July 2008 to July 2010. These data describe seasonal variability in cloud cover at the TMF site, with cloud amount (percentage of cloudy pixels) peaking at just over 51 percent during February, of which more than 60 percent had optical attenuation exceeding 12 dB at wavelengths in the range from the visible to the near-infrared. The lowest cloud amount was found during August, averaging 19.6 percent, and these clouds were mostly optically thin, with low attenuation.
Teaching and learning geometric optics in middle school through the Turning Eyes to the Big Sky project
(2013-06) Leonard, M. J.; Hannahoe, R. M.; Nollmeyer, Gustave E.; Shaw, Joseph A.
The Turning Eyes to the Big Sky project offered schools in southwestern Montana a unique opportunity to strengthen science instruction. The project implemented, in a formal setting, a nationally established informal science curriculum on light and optics, the Hands-on Optics Terrific Telescopes curriculum. Terrific Telescopes was implemented in eight middle-school classrooms and reached 166 students during the 2010 to 2011 school year. As part of the project, we conducted a teacher workshop and assessed student learning outcomes and teachers’ experiences with the curriculum. The goals of our assessments were to improve our understanding of how students learn key optics-related principles, provide evidence of the learning outcomes of Terrific Telescopes, and find out how teachers adapt the curriculum for use in formal settings. Our research established that students in every classroom learned optics concepts, uncovered student ideas about telescope optics, and identified ways to support and supplement the curriculum for use in classrooms.
Field demonstration of a 1 x 4 Fiber Sensor Array for Sub-Surface Carbon Dioxide Monitoring for Carbon Sequestration
(2014-01) Soukup, Benjamin J.; Repasky, Kevin S.; Carlsten, John L.; Wicks, Geoffrey R.
A fiber sensor array for subsurface CO 2 concentration measurements was developed for monitoring geologic carbon sequestration sites. The fiber sensor array uses a single temperature-tunable distributed feedback (DFB) laser operating with a nominal wavelength of 2.004 μm. Light from this DFB laser is directed to one of the four probes via an inline 1×4 fiber optic switch. Each of the four probes is buried and allows the subsurface CO 2 to enter the probe through Millipore filters that allow the soil gas to enter the probe but keeps out the soil and water. Light from the DFB laser interacts with the CO 2 before it is directed back through the inline fiber optic switch. The DFB laser is tuned across two CO 2 absorption features, where a transmission measurement is made allowing the CO 2 concentration to be retrieved. The fiber optic switch then directs the light to the next probe where this process is repeated, allowing subsurface CO 2 concentration measurements at each of the probes to be made as a function of time. The fiber sensor array was deployed for 58 days beginning from June 19, 2012 at the Zero Emission Research Technology field site, where subsurface CO 2 concentrations were monitored. Background measurements indicate that the fiber sensor array can monitor background levels as low as 1000 parts per million (ppm). A 34-day subsurface release of 0.15 tones CO 2 /day began on July 10, 2012. The elevated subsurface CO 2 concentration was easily detected by each of the four probes with values ranging over 60,000 ppm, a factor of greater than 6 higher than background measurements.
A Load Profile Management Integrated Power Dispatch Using a Newton-Like Particle Swarm Optimization Method
(2014-10) Wang, Caisheng; Miller, Carol J.; Nehrir, M. Hashem; Sheppard, John W.; McElmurry, Shawn P.
Load profile management (LPM) is an effective demand side management (DSM) tool for power system operation and management. This paper introduces an LPM integrated electric power dispatch algorithm to minimize the overall production cost over a given period under study by considering both fuel cost and emission factors. A Newton-like particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm has been developed to implement the LPM integrated optimal power dispatch. The proposed Newton-like method is embedded into the PSO algorithm to help handle equality constraints while penalty/fitness functions are used to deal with inequality constraints. In addition to illustrative example applications of the proposed Newton-like PSO technique, the optimization method has been used to realize the LPM integrated optimal power dispatch for the IEEE RTS 96 system. Simulation studies have been carried out for different scenarios with different levels of load management. The simulation results show that the LPM can help reduce generation costs and emissions. The results also verify the effectiveness of the proposed Newton-like PSO method.
Real-Time Digitization of Metabolomics Patterns from a Living System Using Mass Spectrometry
(2014-10) Heinemann, Joshua; Noon, Brigit; Mohigmi, Mohammad J.; Mazurie, Aurélien J.; Dickensheets, David L.; Bothner, Brian
The real-time quantification of changes in intracellular metabolic activities has the potential to vastly improve upon traditional transcriptomics and metabolomics assays for the prediction of current and future cellular phenotypes. This is in part because intracellular processes reveal themselves as specific temporal patterns of variation in metabolite abundance that can be detected with existing signal processing algorithms. Although metabolite abundance levels can be quantified by mass spectrometry (MS), large-scale real-time monitoring of metabolite abundance has yet to be realized because of technological limitations for fast extraction of metabolites from cells and biological fluids. To address this issue, we have designed a microfluidic-based inline small molecule extraction system, which allows for continuous metabolomic analysis of living systems using MS. The system requires minimal supervision, and has been successful at real-time monitoring of bacteria and blood. Feature-based pattern analysis of Escherichia coli growth and stress revealed cyclic patterns and forecastable metabolic trajectories. Using these trajectories, future phenotypes could be inferred as they exhibit predictable transitions in both growth and stress related changes. Herein, we describe an interface for tracking metabolic changes directly from blood or cell suspension in real-time.
Radiometric calibration of infrared imagers using an internal shutter as an equivalent external blackbody
(2014-12) Nugent, Paul W.; Shaw, Joseph A.; Pust, Nathan J.
Advances in microbolometer long-wave infrared (LWIR) detectors have led to the common use of infrared cameras that operate without active temperature stabilization, but the response of these cameras varies with their own temperature. Therefore, obtaining quantitative data requires a calibration that compensates for these errors. This paper describes a method for stabilizing the camera’s response through software processing of consecutive images of the scene and images of the camera’s internal shutter. An image of the shutter is processed so that it appears as if it were viewed through the lens. The differences between the scene and the image of the shutter treated as an external blackbody are then related to the radiance or temperature of the objects in the scene. This method has been applied to two commercial LWIR cameras over a focal plane array temperature range of ±7.2°C, changing at a rate of up to ±0.5°C/min. During these tests, the rms variability of the camera output was reduced from ±4.0°C to ±0.26°C.
Multi-Timescale Power Management for Islanded Microgrids Including Storage and Demand Response
(2015-05) Pourmousavi Kani, Seyyed Ali; Nehrir, M. Hashem; Sharma, R.K.
Power management is an essential tool for microgrid (MG) safe and economic operation, particularly in the islanded operation mode. In this paper, a multi-timescale cost-effective power management algorithm (PMA) is proposed for islanded MG operation targeting generation, storage, and demand management. Comprehensive modeling, cost, and emission calculations of the MG components are developed in this paper to facilitate high accuracy management. While the MGs overall power management and operation is carried out every several minutes to hours, depending on the availability of the required data, simulation for highly dynamic devices, such as batteries and electric water heaters (EWHs) used for demand response (DR), are performed every minute. This structure allows accurate, scalable, and practical power management taking into consideration the intrainterval dynamics of battery and EWHs. Two different on/off strategies for EWH control are also proposed for DR application. Then, the PMA is implemented using the two different DR strategies and the results are compared with the no-DR case. Actual solar irradiation, ambient temperature, nonEWH load demand, and hot water consumption data are employed in the simulation studies. The simulation results for the MG studied show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm to reduce both MGs cost and emission.
Cobleigh hall weather station data, 2005-present [dataset]
(2015-11) Shaw, Joseph A.
This record links to data collected by a weather station operated by the Optical Remote Sensor Laboratory at Montana State University, under the direction of Dr. Joseph Shaw. The weather station is on top of Cobleigh Hall on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman. The latitude is 45.67° N and the longitude is 111.05° W. The elevation on the roof is 5000ft (1524m).
Four-zone varifocus mirrors with adaptive control of primary and higher-order spherical aberration
(2016-06) Lukes, Sarah J.; Downey, Ryan D.; Kreitinger, Seth T.; Dickensheets, David L.
Electrostatically actuated deformable mirrors with four concentric annular electrodes can exert independent control over defocus as well as primary, secondary, and tertiary spherical aberration. In this paper we use both numerical modeling and physical measurements to characterize recently developed deformable mirrors with respect to the amount of spherical aberration each can impart, and the dependence of that aberration control on the amount of defocus the mirror is providing. We find that a four-zone, 4 mm diameter mirror can generate surface shapes with arbitrary primary, secondary, and tertiary spherical aberration over ranges of ±0.4±0.4, ±0.2±0.2, and ±0.15 μm±0.15 μm, respectively, referred to a non-normalized Zernike polynomial basis. We demonstrate the utility of this mirror for aberration-compensated focusing of a high NA optical system.
Dynamic performance of microelectromechanical systems deformable mirrors for use in an active/adaptive two-photon microscope
(2016-12) Archer-Zhang, Christian Chunzi; Foster, Warren B.; Downey, Ryan D.; Arrasmith, Christopher L.; Dickensheets, David L.
Active optics such as deformable mirrors can be used to control both focal depth and aberrations during scanning laser microscopy. If the focal depth can be changed dynamically during scanning, then imaging of oblique surfaces becomes possible. If aberrations can be corrected dynamically during scanning, an image can be optimized throughout the field of view. Here, we characterize the speed and dynamic precision of a Boston Micromachines Corporation Multi-DM 140 element aberration correction mirror and a Revibro Optics 4-zone focus control mirror to assess suitability for use in an active and adaptive two-photon microscope. Tests for the multi-DM include both step response and sinusoidal frequency sweeps of specific Zernike modes (defocus, spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, and trefoil). We find wavefront error settling times for mode amplitude steps as large as 400 nm to be less than 52 mu s, with 3 dB frequencies ranging from 6.5 to 10 kHz. The Revibro Optics mirror was tested for step response only, with wavefront error settling time less than 80 mu s for defocus steps up to 3000 nm, and less than 45 mu s for spherical aberration steps up to 600 nm. These response speeds are sufficient for intrascan correction at scan rates typical of two-photon microscopy. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Modulating motility of intracellular vesicles in cortical neurons with nanomagnetic forces on-chip
(2017-02) Kunze, Anja; Murray, Coleman Tylor; Godzich, Chanya; Lin, Jonathan; Owsley, Keegan; Tay, Andy; Di Carlo, Dino
Vesicle transport is a major underlying mechanism of cell communication. Inhibiting vesicle transport in brain cells results in blockage of neuronal signals, even in intact neuronal networks. Modulating intracellular vesicle transport can have a huge impact on the development of new neurotherapeutic concepts, but only if we can specifically interfere with intracellular transport patterns. Here, we propose to modulate motion of intracellular lipid vesicles in rat cortical neurons based on exogenously bioconjugated and cell internalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) within microengineered magnetic gradients on-chip. Upon application of 6-126 pN on intracellular vesicles in neuronal cells, we explored how the magnetic force stimulus impacts the motion pattern of vesicles at various intracellular locations without modulating the entire cell morphology. Altering vesicle dynamics was quantified using, mean square displacement, a caging diameter and the total traveled distance. We observed a de-acceleration of intercellular vesicle motility, while applying nanomagnetic forces to cultured neurons with SPIONs, which can be explained by a decrease in motility due to opposing magnetic force direction. Ultimately, using nanomagnetic forces inside neurons may permit us to stop the mis-sorting of intracellular organelles, proteins and cell signals, which have been associated with cellular dysfunction. Furthermore, nanomagnetic force applications will allow us to wirelessly guide axons and dendrites by exogenously using permanent magnetic field gradients.