Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) Blog

Kuilin Zhang (CEE) will present “A Best-Case Rosenthal Equilibrium based Coordination Mechanism for N-person Online Routing Games of Connected and Automated Vehicles”

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Kuilin ZhangMotivated by connected and automated vehicle technologies, this talk presents a best-case Rosenthal Equilibrium based coordinate mechanism for online automated routing decisions of connected and automated vehicles in a connected transportation network system.

Zhang is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Transportation Research Part E, as well as Transportation Research Board (TRB) standing committees of Transportation Network Modeling (ADB30) and Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics (AT015). Zhang’s research interests include data-driven optimization and control modeling of connected and automated vehicles, big data analytics of advanced traffic sensing data from mobile and crowdsourced sensors, interdependency and resiliency between smart grid and intelligent transportation systems, multimodal freight logistics and supply chain systems, traffic flow theory and large-scale traffic simulation, and dynamic transportation network equilibrium.

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ICC Members Receive Achievement Awards at Annual Banquet

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Soner Onder, Bo Chen, Kevin TrewarthaAt the annual awards banquet of the Michigan Tech Institute of Computing and Cybersysytems (ICC), on Friday, April 12, three ICC members received the ICC Achievement Award in recognition of their exceptional contributions to research and learning in the fields of computing.

Soner Önder, director of the ICC Center for Scalable Architectures and Systems and professor of computer science, was recognized for his research in next-generation architectures. Önder is principal investigator of three National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, and he has three NSF grant proposals under review.

“Soner is one of our very top researchers in terms of research expenditures and new awards,” said Tim Havens, ICC director and the William and Gloria Jackson Associate Professor of Computer Systems. “He is also active in developing and implementing the ICC vision and activities.”

Kevin Trewartha, a member of the ICC’s Center for Human-Centered Computing, was recognized for his interdisciplinary and collaborative research at the intersection of technology and human motor movement. Trewartha is an assistant professor with a dual appointment in the departments of Cognitive and Learning Sciences and Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology.

“Kevin encompasses the best of the ICC vision,” said Beth Veinott, director of the ICC Center for Human-Centered Computing and associate professor of cognitive and learning sciences.

Trewartha is co-principal investigator, with ICC member Shane Mueller, of a new, three-year, interdisciplinary and collaborative project funded by the National Institutes of Health. For this research, Trewartha and Mueller are working with UP Health Systems Portage and five graduate and three undergraduate students to investigate how technology supports earlier diagnosis of the neurodegenerative diseases.

Bo Chen, a member of the ICC’s Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and assistant professor of computer science, was recognized for his teaching and research in cybersecurity of mobile devices.

Chen is the co-PI of two external grants on cybersecurity from the National Science Administration, and he has submitted numerous cybersecurity proposals to NSF, NSA, Microsoft, and Google.

“Dr. Bo Chen has demonstrated achievements and contributions to the mission of the ICC since coming to Michigan Tech as a tenure-track CS faculty in fall ’17,” said ICC members Guy Hembroff and Yu Cai in their nomination, adding that during that short time, “Dr. Chen has published one book, five journal papers, and 10 conference papers, and in 2017 he was awarded a Distinguished Paper Award from the prestigious cybersecurity venue, the Annual Computer Security Application Conference (ACSAC ’17).”

Chen is the faculty coach for the MTU NCL (National Cyber League) cyber competition team, and during the fall 2018 regular season under Chen’s leadership, a Michigan Tech CS undergraduate student placed 36th out of 3,350 players in NCL cyber competition. Dr. Chen was also recently recognized for receiving an exceptional “average of seven dimensions” student evaluation score for his teaching, among additional accolades.

The ICC, founded in 2015, promotes collaborative, cross-disciplinary research and learning experiences in the areas of cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, data sciences, human-centered computing, and scalable architectures and systems. It provides faculty and students the opportunity to work across organizational boundaries to create an environment that mirrors contemporary technological innovation.

Five research centers comprise the ICC. The ICC’s 50 members, who represent 15 academic units at Michigan Tech, are collaborating to conduct impactful research, make valuable contributions in the field of computing, and solve problems of critical national importance.

Visit the ICC website at icc.mtu.edu. Contact the ICC at icc-contact@mtu.edu or 906-487-2518.

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Kuilin Zhang Wins CAREER Award for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

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Kuilin Zhang
Kuilin Zhang

by Allison Mills, University Marketing and Communications

Smart traffic is more than self-driving cars. One engineer is tackling these transportation systems with an early career award grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Changing lanes, upcoming merges, blind spots — wouldn’t it be great to broadcast to other vehicles what your own car is doing and where? Well, the technology does exist, and the data-rich messages in vehicle-to-vehicle communication are less salty than the ones exchanged in human languages. But the technology needs more development before it’s ready for rush hour.

Kuilin Zhang explained the challenge is forecasting traffic, which is inherently uncertain. Zhang, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and affiliated assistant professor of computer science at Michigan Tech, is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award to improve automated driving decisions using predictive, real-time feedback within and between vehicles. The project totals $500,000 over a five-year span and puts some of Michigan Tech’s prime mobility testing facilities to use.

Read the full story.

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Computer Science Workshop Held April 5-7

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Explore CSR GroupMichigan Tech hosted the workshop “Exploring Computer Science Research” last Friday – Sunday (April 5-7). The workshop was one of 15 Google has sponsored in the U.S. and was organized by four CS Faculty: Leo Ureel, Linda Ott, Jean Mayo and Laura Brown; Jean Mayo and Laura Brown are members of the ICC. The workshop was for women and underrepresented groups to explore research and graduate school opportunities in computer science.

There were 26 attendees from six universities and colleges across Michigan and Wisconsin. Over the course of the weekend each student participated in a research experience, investigating a research question with a faculty mentor. Topics included:

Machine Vision – Robert Pastel, ICC Center for Human-Centered Computing

Data Science in Energy Systems – Laura Brown, ICC Center for Data Sciences

Cybersecurity and Privacy in Storage Systems – Bo Chen, ICC Center for Cybersecurity

Agent-based Simulations in Education – Leo Ureel

Human Computer Interactions: Natural Language Processing for Assistive Technologies – Keith Vertanen, ICC Center for Human-Centered Computing

After learning about and working on their research topics, the students presented out to the group. In addition to their research experiences, attendees learned about different job opportunities after graduate school, heard how to apply to graduate schools and talked to current graduate students about the graduate school experience and their research.

Guest speakers included Niloofar Gheissari and Anja Gruenheid, two Google employees, Pushpalatha Murthy, Dean of the Graduate School and Robin Hunicke, our keynote speaker from the University of California Santa Cruz and Funomena.

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Havens is PI on Naval Surface Warfare Center Project

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Timothy Havens
Tim Havens

Timothy Havens (ECE) is the principal investigator on a research and development project that has received $96,643 from the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Andrew Barnard (ME-EM) is the Co-PI on the project, which is titled, “Localization, Tracking, and Classification of On-Ice and Underwater Noise Sources Using Machine Learning.”

This is the first year of a potential three-year project totaling $299,533.

Tech Today, March 7, 2019

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Yu Cai and Team Recognized by NSA National Cybersecurity Curriculum Program

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Yu Cai
Yu Cai

Yu Cai (SoT) and his team are recognized as featured curriculum authors as part of the National Security Agency (NSA)’s National Cybersecurity Curriculum Program (NCCP). In the 2017 fiscal year, NSA awarded 54 grants to universities to build courses and modules in high need cybersecurity areas. All curriculum has undergone a strenuous multi-faceted review before being released. In the recognition note sent by the NSA NCCP program manager, it says “Curriculum developed by your institution has been released nationally in this unique and transformative effort as we work to secure our nation by strengthening the cyber workforce. We congratulate Cai and appreciate the institutional support provided to him for his hard work in developing this curriculum.”

Yu Cai is the principal investigator of two NSA NCCP grants. The goal of these projects is to integrate concepts and best practices of cybersecurity into undergraduate IT/Computing curricula.

Published in Tech Today, March 11, 2019

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Michigan Tech 2019 Research Magazine

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Published in March 2019

The following ICC members were recognized in the 2019 Research Magazine for receiving National Science Foundation Faculty Career Awards: Sumit Paudyal (“Operation of Distribution Grids in the Context of High-Penetration Distributed Energy Resources and Flexible Loads”), Ye Sun (“System-on-Cloth: A Cloud Manufacturing Framework for Embroidered Wearable Electronics”), and Keith Vertanen (“Technology Assisted Conversations”). Read the full article here.

Keith Vertanen and Scott Kuhl’s research into the development of a mid-air virtual keyboard by mounting a hand-tracking device on a VR headset was featured in the article, “Ready User One.” Read the full article here.

The Research in Brief section included Keith Vertanen’s Alzheimer’s research, “H-STEM Engineering and Health Technologies Complex;” and Robert Pastel’s Keweenaw Time Traveler map and the Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure. Read the full article here.

Read the 2019 Research Magazine here.

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ICC Members Guy Hembroff and Yu Cai featured in Deans’ Teaching Showcase

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Guy Hembroff
Yu Cai
Yu Cai

by Michael R. Meyer, Director William G. Jackson CTL

In this week’s showcase, School of Technology Dean Adrienne Minerick would like to recognize Todd Arney, Guy Hembroff and Yu Cai  for their collaborative, creative efforts in developing a new course: SAT 4411 Data Center Engineering.

Along with former faculty member Xinli Wang, the three responded in Fall 2014 to a request from the Computer Network and Systems Administration (CNSA) Industrial Advisory Board to provide students with more exposure and practical hands-on experience with virtualization, cloud computing and data center engineering for both physical and virtual data centers.

Topics included in the course during initial planning included data center planning, disaster recovery, virtualization methods and cloud computing services that provide business continuity,

The class was first offered in Spring 2016 and was co-taught by Hembroff, Arney and Wang. The original idea was to devote one third of the class to data centers, one third to virtualization and a third to cloud computing.

Labs included tours of data centers both on and off campus and detailed discussions with data center managers. Students responded positively to seeing the real-world data centers and getting information directly from data center technicians and professionals in several different fields related to data center engineering.

From Tech Today, February 22, 2019

Read the full article.

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