Category: News

Tonight’s viewers of AlphaGo will get the opportunity to learn more on the research and application of artificial intelligence (AI) happening today, here at Michigan Tech and beyond. A panel discussion with Dr. Timothy Havens (ECE/CS), Dr. Laura Brown (CS), Dr. Steven Goldsmith (MEEM/ECE), Dr. Scott Marratto (HU), and Josh Manela (ECE alumnus) of Ford subsidiary Argo AI will follow the screening.

AlphaGo: 7:30 p.m. Friday, November 3, Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts

AlphaGo is featured in this year’s 41 North Film Festival hosted by the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. Directed by Greg Kohs, the documentary chronicles a journey from the halls of Cambridge, through the backstreets of Bordeaux, past the coding terminals of DeepMind in London, and, ultimately, to the seven-day tournament in Seoul. As the drama unfolds, more questions emerge: What can artificial intelligence reveal about a 3000-year-old game? What can it teach us about humanity?

Saeid Nooshabadi (ECE/ICC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received $349,988 from the National Science Foundation for the project, “Collaborative Research: ACI-CDS&E: Highly Parallel Algorithms and Architectures for Convex Optimization for Realtime Embedded Systems (CORES).” This is a three-year project.

By Sponsored Programs.

Abstract

Embedded processors are ubiquitous, from toasters and microwave ovens, to automobiles, planes, drones and robots and are typically very small processors that are compute and memory constrained. Real-time embedded systems have the additional requirement of completing tasks within a certain time period to accurately and safely control appliances and devices like automobiles, planes, robots, etc. Convex optimization has emerged as an important mathematical tool for automatic control and robotics and other areas of science and engineering disciplines including machine learning and statistical information processing. In many fields, convex optimization is used by the human designers as optimization tool where it is nearly always constrained to problems solved in a few hours, minutes or seconds. Highly Parallel Algorithms and Architectures for Convex Optimization for Realtime Embedded Systems (CORES) project takes advantage of the recent advances in embedded hardware and optimization techniques to explore opportunities for real-time convex optimization on the low-cost embedded systems in these disciplines in milli- and micro-seconds.

Read more at the National Science Foundation.

Chee-Wooi Ten (ECE) is the lead principal investigator on a project that has received a $348,866 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Yeonwoo Rho (Math/ICC) is the Co-PI on the project “CPS:Medium: Collaborative Research: An Actuarial Framework of Cyber Risk Management for Power Grids.” This is a three-year project.

There are two investigators from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The total for both universities is $700,975.

Abstract

As evidenced by the recent cyberattacks against Ukrainian power grids, attack strategies have advanced and new malware agents will continue to emerge. The current measures to audit the critical cyber assets of the electric power infrastructure do not provide a quantitative guidance that can be used to address security protection improvement. Investing in cybersecurity protection is often limited to compliance enforcement based on reliability standards. Auditors and investors must understand the implications of hypothetical worst case scenarios due to cyberattacks and how they could affect the power grids. This project aims to establish an actuarial framework for strategizing technological improvements of countermeasures against emerging cyberattacks on wide-area power networks.

Read more at the National Science Foundation.

In an interview with @ForensicMag, ECE associate professor Chee-Wooi Ten answers the Virtual Case Notes question: Are Power Grids Prepared to Withstand Cyber Threats?

Ten says an effective approach to improving cybersecurity for power grids would be to encourage cooperation between those with knowledge about cybersecurity and those with knowledge about power grids and their physical components, so the two can work together to assess the risks and how they can best be dealt with.

Read more for the complete story by associate editor Laura French.

Elena Semouchkina (ECE/ICC), is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $337,217 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The project is “Developing Anisotropic Media for Transformation Optics by Using Dielectric Photonic Crystals.” This is a three-year project.

Abstract

Transformation optics (TO) is based on coordinate transformations, which require proper spatial dispersions of the media parameters. Such media force electromagnetic (EM) waves, moving in the original coordinate system, to behave as if they propagate in a transformed coordinate system. Thus TO introduces a new powerful technique for designing advanced EM devices with superior functionalities. Coordinate transformations can be derived for compressing, expanding, bending, or twisting space, enabling designs of invisibility cloaks, field concentrators, perfect lenses, beam shifters, etc., that may bring advances to various areas of human life. Realization of these devices depends on the possibility of creating media with prescribed EM properties, in particular, directional refractive indices to provide wave propagation with superluminal phase velocities and high refractive indices in the normal direction to cause wave movement along curvilinear paths. Originally, artificial metamaterials (MMs) composed of tiny metallic resonators were chosen for building transformation media. However, a number of serious challenges were encountered, such as extremely narrow frequency band of operation and the high losses in metal elements. The proposed approach is to use dielectric photonic crystals to overcome these major limitations of MM media. This project will allow graduate and undergraduate students, especially women in engineering, to participate in theoretical and experimental EM research. Outreach activities include lectures and hands-on projects in several youth programs to K-12 students.

Read more at the National Science Foundation.

Tim Havens (ECE/CS) and Tony Pinar (ECE) presented several papers at the IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems in Naples, Italy. Havens also chaired a session on Innovations in Fuzzy Inference.

The conference took place July 9-12, 2017.

Havens and Pinar also attend the Invited Workshop on the Future of Fuzzy Sets and Systems in Rothley, UK. This event invited leading researchers from around the globe for a two-day workshop to discuss future directions and strategies, in particular, to cybersecurity. The event was hosted by the University of Nottingham, UK, and sponsored by the National Cyber Security Centre, part of UK’s GCHQ.