Electrical and Computer Engineering Newsblog

I can’t resist starting out this week’s column with a tip of the cap to the Chicago Cubs, baseball’s perennial losers who finally won the World Series. I think it is really a wonderful story. You have to realize, this comes from someone who lived in St. Louis for 24 years before coming to Michigan Tech, and is still a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan. The Cards and the Cubs are division rivals, big-time, and I’m sure there are plenty of old friends in St. Louis who would have been much happier to see the Cleveland Indians take it all. I can’t go that far. My loyalties remain with the National League, where they play baseball the way God intended, and you just have to be a little bit happy for a team that breaks a 108-year-old championship drought. I even tried to use the story this week as inspiration for a struggling student, citing the triumph of hope and optimism (I’m not sure it worked). Anyway, congratulations Cubbies and Cubs fans, we’ll see you next year.

The main thing on my mind this week is the question, as I mentioned last Friday, of whether or not the entrepreneurial success story of Silicon Valley can be recreated in other parts of the country, particularly Michigan and the larger Great Lakes region. This was the subject of a panel discussion led by our visitors in the 14 Floors program that I described last week. There was a lot of back and forth on the question, and I think the consensus at the end was that the whole Silicon Valley phenomenon is the result of a unique set of circumstances that are not being duplicated elsewhere. This is not to say, however, that other areas cannot learn from what has happened in California, and adapt the entrepreneurial spirit in ways that might be appropriate for them. I was very interested to be reminded that Michigan was very entrepreneurial in its own right, back in the early days of the automotive industry when there were a lot of small automobile manufacturers before the ascendancy of the Big 3. There is an awful lot of highly skilled engineering talent in the area – schools like Michigan Tech continue to add to that talent base – and thus there is every reason to believe that good things can happen here.

In discussions comparing California and Michigan technology and economics, one dominant theme always comes up: autonomous vehicles. Michigan is of course home to the U.S. auto industry, but the key role of computer science, software engineering, machine vision, robotics etc. in autonomous vehicles has led to a lot of development work in Silicon Valley. Google and Uber want to be in the self-driving car business, as is well-known. The Big 3 automakers also have technology developments efforts in California now; I am familiar with one such facility by Ford in Palo Alto, which is very impressive and is growing quickly in support of their “moon shot” to put a fully autonomous vehicle on the road by 2021. I think this is a very smart move, combining the best of both worlds.

That being said, I do believe there is aspect to automotive design where the century-old Michigan model is still going to be very important: functional safety and reliability. It may sound a bit stodgy and conservative, but the slow, careful approach to getting it right the first time is going to be absolutely critical to the successful deployment of autonomous vehicles. I realize that Detroit has had its issues over the years, but in my experience the reliability of U.S. automobiles, especially in the last couple of decades, is nothing short of remarkable. With the exception of flat tires and dead batteries (seemingly insurmountable problems) one can count on properly maintained cars today to run the way they are supposed to. It’s probably been 30 years since I had an issue where an engine freaked out and left me stranded on the side of the road. I find this approach to reliability in stark contrast to the Silicon Valley model in which failure is not only an option, but a badge of honor on the path to entrepreneurial success.

The acceptance of flawed technology in our computer-dependent society is nowhere more evident than in the area of cybersecurity. Clearly, the original designers and visionaries in computer technology did not fully realize how easy it would be for bad actors to infiltrate the system and make computers do things that their legitimate owners and operators did not intend for them to do. We now are pushing toward the Internet of Things, or the Internet of Everything if you will. This is, or will be, a gigantic universal system of information and control that holds a lot of promise but at the same time is so riddled with security flaws that every thinking citizen should lie awake at night worrying about their family privacy, their financial integrity, and yes, the safety of their future autonomous vehicles. Consider how accepting we are today of a situation in which international hackers can steal e-mail from a major political organization, give or sell it to a third party, and exert a significant influence on a major U.S. election. This is normal? I am not suggesting that modern software designers are thoughtless or lazy, but I do think the modern push to “move fast and break things” has done exactly that, and now we have the system we have.

We have a chance to change the paradigm in the modern technology development in robotics, control, automation, cyber-physical systems, all those technologies that point toward the autonomous systems which are inevitably in our future. The new paradigm could borrow from the old paradigm of thoughtful, careful craftsmanship, one that asks the old question “if you don’t have time to do it right the first time, how are you going to find the time to fix it later?” The engineering design and manufacturing experience of Michigan and other supposedly “Rust Belt” areas might be the saving grace for autonomous systems that people will actually trust. Dare I say it? Others might do it fast, but Michigan can do it right.

[Credit where it is due: I have been influenced in my thinking on this topic by ECE Assistant Professor Jeremy Bos, who incidentally just received an Air Force Young Investigator Program (YIP) award. Congratulations and thank you Jeremy!]

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann, Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

My schedule has been pretty full this week. In the first part of the week we had our semi-annual visit by a group of advisors, mostly but not entirely from Silicon Valley, led by ECE alumnus and supporter Dave House. This group, all of whom are successful entrepreneurs in one way or another, come to town on a regular basis to advise and encourage us on a wide range of issues. The aim is to keep moving us forward along the path of transforming the university to one that can best meet the needs of students, industry, and our society in general in the 21st century. This was followed by a quick trip to the Detroit area where I am meeting with some of our industry partners, and also joining the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI), our research facility in Ann Arbor that was started with Dave’s financial support and which has been highly successful. That gives me a lot to write about but in the interest of brevity I should stick to one topic and save the rest for later.

Our Silicon Valley advisory group, and the full slate of activities for faculty and students that surrounds their visit including the spring break “Silicon Valley Experience” has come to be known by the name “14 Floors”, 14 being the atomic number for silicon. [Aside: some people are starting to refer to the San Francisco Bay Area as “Software Valley” in light of the rise of companies like Google and Facebook, and the fact that there is not nearly as much semiconductor manufacturing as there was in recent years.] Entrepreneurship is always a big theme of the visit, not surprising considering that 50% of the world’s venture capital is concentrated in the Valley, as we were told. Partly in the response to the group’s encouragement over the years, Michigan Tech has
done a lot to create programs that give students more exposure to management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. This has been going on a long time in our traditional Senior Design programs and our signature Enterprise program, and more recently with the establishment of a new academic unit, the Pavlis Honors College.

I should say a little bit about the composition of the group. Our visitors are held up as paragons of success, which is absolutely true, without question. We had seven visitors this time around. 4 out of the 7 are graduates of what was formerly the EE Department at Michigan Tech. There was one additional person who had to cancel for personal reasons at the last minute, and if he had been here it would have been 5 out of 8. 4 out of those 5 are members of the ECE Academy, one being inducted as recently as last August. The 5th – Paul Fulton – was inducted in a quick little ceremony we had Wednesday evening at the Continental Fire Company.

One thing that always strikes me when I consider this group – and I am thinking primarily of the five EEs – is that before they were managers, before they were leaders, before they were entrepreneurs, they were electrical engineers. They graduated from an intellectually rigorous academic program that emphasized technical skills almost exclusively. After graduation they entered the workforce and continued to hone those skills, each becoming an expert in his own area. It was only after they matured both technically and personally that they stepped up, took on more and more responsibility, and eventually became the leaders that they are today. Somehow I think this fact is lost on a part of our population of 18- to 22-year olds, and those that mentor them, many of whom seem to think there is a path to success in technological entrepreneurship that skips the technology part.

In the ECE Department we are pretty comfortable with the fact that our #1 job in undergraduate education is to give our students the absolutely best education in the technical side of electrical engineering and computer engineering that we possibly can. I believe that the industry demand for our graduates, the massive Career Fairs we have had on campus the past few years, and the 96.9% (self-reported) placement rate for ECE graduates, speaks for itself. The leadership and entrepreneurship piece, for those with the talent and the ambition, will come soon enough. I am a big believer in the notion of “paying your dues” – working hard, developing one’s craft day by day, and eventually gaining the credibility that allows one to move on to bigger and better things. My advice to our eager young students: build your house on rock, not on sand.

There are others who feel differently, and that’s fine – it’s a good and healthy debate. One of the great things about being at a place like Michigan Tech is that we can have those debates, and at the end of the day still go home friends.

Next week – can the Silicon Valley phenomenon be transplanted elsewhere – like in Michigan?

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

Those that have been following this column or the activities in the ECE Department know that I am really keen on beefing up our educational and research programs in robotics, control, autonomy, and mobility. I see this as a very important space for Michigan Tech, especially considering the university’s role, spelled out in our founding legislation, to support industry in the State of Michigan. As it turns out, there is already quite a bit going on; I just think we need to get it unified and a little better organized, and publicized as well.

I want to share an amusing anecdote with you, one that I think speaks to the important role that EE and ECE departments play in cyber-physical systems and everything that goes with them, like autonomous vehicles. I was wandering about the Internet a few days ago, looking for interesting tidbits related to robotics and control, and for some reason I decided to Google the phrase “computer control of mechanical systems.” The first search result turned out to be a course description for a senior-level course offered at the University of Illinois, with that exact title: ME 461, Computer Control of Mechanical Systems. I thought – interesting, let’s see what that is all about.

Here is the list of topics in said course, according to the web page:

• DC circuits.
• Analog and digital electronics.
• Sensors, transducers, and actuators.
• Data conversion and transmission.
• Microcontroller architecture.
• Microcontroller programming and interfacing.
• Response and control of electro-mechanical systems.
• Introduction to sampled time control theory.

Look at this carefully. I laughed out loud, literally, when I saw this outline. A course called “Computer Control of Mechanical Systems” is nothing more, or perhaps nothing less, than a survey course in electrical engineering!

What does this mean? For me, it says that the connection between computer algorithms and mechanical systems is in the domain of electrical engineering. We are the bridge that brings computational intelligence to rotating machinery. If CS is the brains and ME is the brawn, then ECE is the central nervous system.

ECE is front and center in the technological revolution of autonomy and mobility – well, perhaps “center” but maybe not so much “front.” A lot of what we do is in the background, perhaps because many of our efforts have been so successful that the results have been commoditized. This seems to be particularly true for the FIRST Robotics programs, a highly successful nationwide high-school competition intended to get students fired up about STEM fields. FIRST has been great for computer science and mechanical engineering, no doubt, but the EE glue that holds everything together doesn’t get quite the same visibility.

Robotics is really an amalgamation of CS, EE, and ME, and all three play different but critical roles. As was recently pointed out to me by one of our industry partners, the magic really happens when you get this trio to play nicely together. I will continue to work for that at Michigan Tech. Of course, in my role as ECE chair I will continue to advocate for electrical and computer engineering as a central player in this rapidly emerging field, and to be recognized as such.

[I should add that none of the above is meant to give a hard time to the University of Illinois, a fantastic institution with one of the best engineering schools in the country.]

Next week’s column will probably be written in a hotel room in Detroit, as I take this message on the road. Until then, have a great week everyone!

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

Last night I saw the northern lights for the first time. Having lived in the Upper Peninsula for over eight years now, one would think that I would have had many opportunities, but no such luck until now. My wife and I got the news that there was a high probability of activity, so we drove up to Eagle River to have dinner at a nice restaurant on the shore of Lake Superior, facing northwest. After dinner, when it was dark, we went out to have a look and there they were big as life. It was a clear night, with a nearly full and very bright moon that unfortunately washed the contrast out quite a bit. Still, it was a thrill to see something I had always heard about but had never witnessed first-hand.

There is not much point to that story, other than it reminds me (yet again) of the things that are unusual and special about Michigan Tech and this part of the country.

Right now we are at the halfway point in the Fall 2016 semester – the end of Week 7. It seems that things have quieted down a bit, although a lot of people are excited about the home opener for the hockey team tonight at the MacInnes Ice Arena. For me, the first half of the fall semester is always very hectic, with advisory boards and the Career Fair and most recently all the performance evaluations leading up to mid-year raise recommendations for the faculty and staff. This week, I have had a chance to slow down and enjoy the change of seasons.

Fall is always a beautiful time of year in the Keweenaw. Because of all the warm weather we have had in September, fall is very late this year, I would say maybe as much as two weeks. There is a lot of color in the trees but they have not peaked yet; we need a good freeze to really get the colors to pop, and that hasn’t happened yet. The weather is great but the colors may be a bit on the bland side this year.

There’s an old joke around here that there are two seasons in the U.P. – “winter’s here” and “winter’s coming.” Once the leaves are off the trees in a couple of weeks, it really will be “winter’s coming,” a sort of nondescript time when things are gray but the snow hasn’t showed up yet. I find it a good time to take stock, clear off the to-do list (to the extent that is possible), and to start making preparations for the inevitable snow. Some people say we could get as much as 300 inches this year. I don’t doubt that that is possible, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

The reader can tell that, even though I am in the office, my mind is not in the office. That is one disadvantage of having a big picture window with a view of the fall colors! Next week I will close the blinds and get back to writing about electrical and computer engineering.

Have a great weekend everyone!

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University