The Information Science and Technology
(IST) Division conducts nationally competitive multi-disciplinary
innovative research in information science and technology for
conceptualization, design, analysis, deployment, and efficient
operation of distributed and intelligent dynamic systems for the DoD,
Government, business, and education sectors.
Established in 1997, IST was initially
formed to establish the National Information Infrastructure Testbed
(NII), a ten year university/industry partnership funded by DARPA. The
NII Testbed developed advanced sensor nework and information sharing
tools for prognosis and mitigation of material damage in operating
machinery.
The current IS&T Division is made
up of three distinct departments:
- Analytical Modeling
Information fusion is defined as process in which
information from disparate sources are efficiently combined into a
single overarching source thus providing more information about an
event that
would not otherwise be possible using individual sources. The Sensors
and Control Laboratory provides
supports to Information Fusion research by providing advanced networks
of wired
and wireless heterogeneous sensors. Current application of interest in
Information Fusion includes associating
video surveillance data with biological, chemical, infrared, acoustic,
and
positional data for TTL (tagging, tracking, and locating) of human
subjects in a busy
urban environment. The idea is to associate chemical, biological, and
biometric signals emanating from a
target to the corresponding video data stream by utilizing
computational mechanics and symbolic dynamic methods.
Computational mechanics employs ε-machines (probabilistic finite state
machines) to determine underlying patterns
in data streams. By utilizing ε-transducer (probabilistic finite state
transducers), the underlying pattern in one sensor data stream can be
associated to
patterns in other sensor data streams.
The Intelligent
Controls Department
- Distributed Systems
The Distributed Systems Department conducts advanced
research in the design and applications of real and non-real time
systems that have
multiple and spatially distributed resources that
communicate over scalable and multi-technology networks. Our primary
focus is on
systems that use autonomous mobile and stationary
platforms that have heterogeneous sensors and actuator to support
military, industrial and civilian applications that require persistent
monitoring and control of the operating environments.
Our research also spans utilizing contemporary
distributed computing technologies such as the SoA, Semantic Web and
the Ontology of
distributed autonomous systems. Since a distributed
autonomous systems is subject to failures due to software, hardware and
external cyber attack,the group also conducts research in survivability
modeling and cyber security.
The IST Division maintains
state-of-the-art testbeds and computing frameworks for prototyping or
simulating innovations in wireless mobile robotic networks, sensors and
controls, and augmented reality smart spaces.
- Information Systems
Collaboratory provides the distributed infrastructure for laboratories
and testbeds focused on research of dynamic control and coordination of
complex interacting processes and distributed decision automata with
real-time and/or transient information.
- The Mobile Robotics
Laboratory emphasizes robotic networking, logical control and
interactive behavior to design, implement and test mobile robotics
systems for real world applications.
- The Sensors and Control
Laboratory supports advanced research in sensor fusion, wireless sensor
networks, distributed control theory, hierarchical control systems, and
hybrid control architectures.
- The Augmented Reality
Smart Space Laboratory, using sensing, actuation, and distributed
processing, brings reality into cyberspace enabling human computer
interaction, cybersecurity, environmental monitoring, mobile code, and
detection of airborne pathogens.
- The Smart Urban Sensors
Network Laboratory, using live and virtual sensors collaboratively
disseminating their data over wired and wireless networks, provides a
testbed for research in network design and control to support improved
dynamic sensor fusion for enhanced detection and tracking of critical
events in the complex and volatile urban environment.
Some of our projects included:
Engineering Sensor Network
Structure for Information Fusion (eSensIF) MURI and Complex
Systems Failures MURI (funded
by ARO),
Reactive Sensor
Networks (RSN), Adaptive
C2 Coalitions (AC2C), and Emergent
Surveillance Plexus
(ESP) MURI (funded by DARPA),
Geoinformatic Hotspot Analysis (funded by NSF), Dynamic
Space-time Clustering of Multi-source Assets For Early Localization of
Mines project, Mobile
Ubiquitous Security Environment (MUSE) , and Ocean Sampling
Mobile Network (SAMON) (funded by
ONR).
Additional Information: