Emerging Technologies
Researchers in the State of Indiana are at the forefront of innovation in many areas of advanced information technology and their applications. Current areas of innovation include intelligent wheelchairs, systems that enable people to easily interact with advanced 3D maps that scale from a city block to the world, and systems that identify wireless computers and help enhance computer security.
The common threads in all of these examples are the following:
- Researchers in the State of Indiana are creating new and innovative technologies enabled by or advancing the newest computing technology in existence
- The long-term importance of these advances will take years to understand
- Indiana’s three leading research institution are actively and
effectively pursuing the translation of these new technologies into
the private sector, so that they both improve the lives of people everywhere
and boost the high-tech economy of the state of Indiana.
Purdue University
Purdue University is investing $7.27M over the next five years to establish the Center for Wireless Systems and Applications (CWSA), which will serve to focus emerging technologies research. This center, led by Catherine Rosenburg, professor of electrical and computer engineering, builds on Purdue’s strengths in engineering, sciences, and technology in the pursuit of diverse end-to-end innovative solutions using wireless technologies.
CWSA membership includes more than 85 Purdue faculty from 11schools and departments spanning the schools of Engineering, Science, Technology, and the Krannert School of Management. CWSA also works closely with Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), leveraging ITaP’s wireless network infrastructure as a living laboratory to deploy newly developed tools and services.
- CWSA will offer a unique multidisciplinary program of research and education in wireless systems and applications.
- CWSA fosters strong collaboration with industry; industrial partners will occupy a central role in determining activities.
- The center has six major foci:
- devices and materials
- low-power electronics
- wave-based systems (radio and non-radio)
- communications
- networks
- multimedia
Spanning these are the four driving themes that are at the forefront of CWSA solutions: applications, middleware, strategy and policies, and security.
Indiana University
The focal point for creation of new computing technologies at Indiana University is the Pervasive Technology Labs. One of the major, emerging macro-phenomena in information technology in the new information economy is pervasive computing. Pervasive computing envisages a time when the relentless decrease in the price of microprocessors coupled with the relentless increase in their power allows these microprocessors to become integrated seamlessly into every aspect of our day-to-day lives. As this is aligned with advances in mobile, high-performance communications technology that enable these microprocessors to communicate effectively with each other, we should see a world in which computing, telecommunications, and information access all are truly pervasive. The focus areas for the Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University include the following:
- Networked devices, sensors, instruments, and interfaces
- Information and computational resources, organized and accessible
as a ubiquitous service grid
- Converged telecommunications including global wireless and broadband
networks
- Advanced high-bandwidth networking services
- Ubiquitous tools for analysis of information
- Human-machine interaction technology
- Software agent technology
In all of these areas, Indiana University is effectively working to capture two of the key economic benefits of these development activities: transferring new technologies into the private sector and building up the high tech workforce of tomorrow in central Indiana. In this way, the Pervasive Technology Labs are at the forefront of both technology development and Indiana’s economic development.
University of Notre Dame
Borrowing a page from industrial robotics, Notre Dame is giving autonomy to highly disabled power wheelchair users whose mix of disabilities curtails a conventional chair’s utility. Industrial robots are controlled by the reliable and effective “teach and repeat” method, in which the system stores internal joint poses specified by a human operator and recalls them in sequence to execute each task. Applying this paradigm to the “nonholonomic” wheelchair can be equally effective, as illustrated in testing sponsored by the Veterans Administration, involving disabled veterans at the Edward J. Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Hines, Il.
The nonholonomic wheelchair is trained by maneuvering it through its operational environment, “teaching” it the path segments that connect desirable wheelchair positions/orientations. Postprocessed data collected during this teaching event develops into elaborate trajectories that the disabled rider can activate on command. The postprocessor also assigns an ultrasound profile to obviate inherent problems of using ultrasound to avoid obstacles while allowing the chair to approach solid objects as required by the trajectory objectives. Likewise, use of wall-mounted visual reference cues during both teaching and tracking events eliminates the need for globally-accurate mapping.
The disabled rider activates the taught trajectories by selecting the desired destination from an audio menu using only a binary switch, for example a chin switch compatible with the user’s abilities. The algorithm automatically pieces together taught segments to connect the chair’s current location to the selected arrival station. The rider may also use the same switch to halt the chair, resume travel, or reverse course at any point mid-maneuver.
In addition to the nonholonomic wheelchair, current robotics research projects at Notre Dame include a mechanism design for kinematic singularity avoidance, computed torque strategies for accurate control of high-speed motion, strategies for cooperating robots, and camera-space manipulation for robust visual guidance.