Award Abstract #0321385
MRI/RUI - Aquisition of robotics equipment for an Intelligent Systems Laboratory

NSF Org:	CNS Division of Computer and Network Systems
Initial Amendment Date:	August 6, 2003
Latest Amendment Date:	August 6, 2003
Award Number:	0321385
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Rita V. Rodriguez CNS Division of Computer and Network Systems CSE Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering
Start Date:	August 15, 2003
Expires:	July 31, 2007 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:	$346188
Investigator(s):	Ben Juliano Juliano@csuChico.edu (Principal Investigator) Ramesh Varahamurti (Co-Principal Investigator) Renee Renner (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:	California State University, Chico Research Fdtn Office of Sponsored Programs chico, ca 95929 530/898-5700
NSF Program(s):	MAJOR RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION
Field Application(s):	0000099 Other Applications NEC
Program Reference Code(s):	HPCC, 9218, 1189
Program Element Code(s):	1189

ABSTRACT

This project, acquiring robotics equipment for an Intelligent Systems Laboratory (ISL), aims at facilitating the development of cross-disciplinary courses and providing exciting research possibilities. Furnishing opportunities of joint collaborations with other disciplines, ISL enables students and faculty to investigate, design, and implement control algorithms using non-traditional techniques derived from various subdisciplines of Artificial Intelligence, such as fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, hybrid approaches. ISL fosters research and development of solitary cooperating autonomous or teleoperative mobile robots for a variety of tasks such as gathering data from potentially hazardous environments and facilitating search and rescue missions.

Areas identified for research, motivated by terrorist attacks, include:

Design and deployment of intelligent agents for bio-surveillance and threat detection, and

Design and implementation of large-scale hybrid systems tools for soft computing, complexity analysis, and intelligent applications.

Robotics kits will be acquired, facilitating research, research training, and integrated research/education activities at various academic levels. New interdisciplinary courses will be developed and cross-listed in Machine Intelligence, Intelligent Systems, Design and Applications, Intelligent Control, and Autonomous Robots. Moreover, participants will be recruited for Girls SRC, a Summer Robotics Camp for junior high school.

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