Abstract

In this presentation we shall first describe the genesis of the Center , its scientific goals and organization. The second half describes the most recent technical accomplishments, notably related to the network of MOTEs, and their applications, but also other applications of IT to humanities and social science. A MOTE is an assembly of sensors, a small computer and a radio. It has the capability of sensing some physical property, such as temperature, light, velocity or acceleration, chemical sensors, strain gage sensor and their like. The computer has a small operating system, called TinyOS, which enables the user to program and control some of their activity. The radio transmits the sensed and processed information in 36 byte packets. The MOTEs operate on 2AA batteries. We shall present several examples of applications of these reconfigurable networks. However we shall also show the outstanding technical problems and issues of privacy and reliability. We shall also present some recent results in our Collaborative technologies, including Croquet base interactive system for dealing with contents from Digital Library and tele-immersive environments.

Speaker Appointments

For appointments, please contact Bernardine Dias (mbdias@ri.cmu.edu).

Please note that only limited appointment times are available.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy ("buy cheese") was appointed Director of CITRIS at the University of California, Berkeley on November 1, 2001. Prior to coming to Berkeley, she was Assistant Director of the Computer Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE) between December 1, 1998 and September 1, 2001. As head of National Science Foundation's CISE directorate, Dr. Bajcsy managed a $500 million annual budget. She came to the NSF from the University of Pennsylvania where she was a professor of computer science and engineering. Dr. Bajcsy is a pioneering researcher in machine perception, robotics and artificial intelligence. She is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Berkeley. She was also Director of the University of Pennsylvania's General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Laboratory, which she founded in 1978. Dr. Bajcsy has done seminal research in the areas of human-centered computer control, cognitive science, robotics, computerized radiological/medical image processing and artificial vision. She is highly regarded, not only for her significant research contributions, but also for her leadership in the creation of a world-class robotics laboratory, recognized world wide as a premiere research center. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the Institute of Medicine. She is especially known for her wide-ranging, broad outlook in the field and her cross-disciplinary talent and leadership in successfully bridging such diverse areas as robotics and artificial intelligence, engineering and cognitive science. Dr. Bajcsy received her master's and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Slovak Technical University in 1957 and 1967, respectively. She received a Ph.D. in computer science in 1972 from Stanford University, and since that time has been teaching and doing research at Penn's Department of Computer and Information Science. She began as an assistant professor and within 13 years became chair of the department. Prior to her work at the University of Pennsylvania, she taught during the 1950s and 1960s as an instructor and assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Department of Computer Science at Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. She has served as advisor to more than 50 Ph.D. recipients. In 2001 she received an honorary doctorate from University of Ljubljana in Slovenia In 2001 she became a recipient of the ACM A. Newell award.