• Nov 2001: NASA awards IAI contract to develop autonomous agents team formation protocol.
• Nov 2001: Marine Corp System Command awards a SBIR Phase I contract to IAI to develop a Through-the-Wall Imaging Sensor.
• Nov 2001: NASA awards a SBIR Phase I contract to IAI to develop a low-cost and low-power communication interface for wireless sensors.
• Nov 2001: NASA awards IAI a Phase I SBIR to develop a simulator to study airspace ecology.
• Nov 2001: Intelligent Automation to participate in the development of a NAS-Wide Modeling and Simulation toolbox for NASA Ames.
• Nov 2001: DARPA awards a contract to IAI and Penn. State University to develop a Novel Integrated Approach to Robust and Scalable Cognitive Agent Design
• Nov 2001: NASA awards contract to IAI to develop a Docking Sensor and Guidance System for Unmanned Micro-Satellites.
• Oct 2001: NSF/DOT awards a grant for exploratory research on traffic management and route guidance using agents approach.
• Oct 2001: Department of Commerce awards IAI a SBIR Phase II contract to develop a system that could track fire fighters inside a building from outside.
• Oct 2001: Department of Education awards IAI contract to build multisensory language development tool for preliterate children.
• Sept 2001: ONR awards contract to IAI for carrier-based weapons transport vehicle
• Sept 2001: IAI to improve emergency patient care with integrated medical informatics
• August 2001: Professor Soundar Kumara of Pennsylvania State to spend sabbatical at IAI.
• July 2001: NAVSEA awards contract to improve data networks onboard submarines.
• July 2001: Army Funds IAI Research on Noise Elimination for Enhanced Speech Recognition
• June 2001: IAI to redesign the side lateral engine mounts on the Navy Air E-2C Hawkeye.
• June 2001: IAI awarded NASA contract to develop our "teach-by-showing" technology.
• June 2001: Naval Air Warfare Center contracts IAI to create automated advisor for instructional designers.
IAI to use Time Modulated Ultra Wide Band Radar for building moisture detection.
In collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Building and Fire Research Laboratory, IAI is conducting experiments to evaluate an innovative and powerful approach to detecting moisture in building envelopes. We use Time-Modulated Ultra Wide Band (TM-UWB) radar to detect moisture buildup in building cavities, as well as inside building materials. Results from preliminary experiments and simulations indicate that TM-UWB provides two possible modes of moisture detection: An ultra-sensitive, quantitative, calibratable measurement, based on time-of -flight through the material, measures the moisture near the sensor, while multi-path signals provide a sensitive, qualitative measure of moisture accumulation in a much larger area. These test are the first of their kind, and provide understanding on how ultra short radio pulses propagate through moist materials, and how such pulses can be used as a stand-off probe of moisture and humidity.
For more information contact Dr. Eric van Doorn at evandoorn@i-a-i.com.
Nov 2001: NASA awards IAI a Phase I SBIR to develop coordination protocol that enables hierarchical team formation among autonomous agents, in particular to spacecraft formation.
In this SBIR Phase I project, we are proposing a capability for the human operators to control the level of decision-making autonomy assigned to the robotic agents performing surface exploration or spacecraft taking pictures of the planets, while encouraging team behavior among them. The level of autonomy is governed by a set of reasoning components or objects that interpret the incoming messages (e.g., task directive, request for information etc.) of a robotic agent. By replacing these components called role objects, the agent's planning autonomy can be altered to a level that requires human intervention to certain degree. This approach is efficient than the human operators adding and replacing the generated tasks after the planning in order to change the agent's plan. Reasoning components are formalized based on peer-to-peer relationships (e.g., trust, dependability and authority). These relationship parameters can be updated with time encouraging team behavior as orthogonal to controlling agents' autonomy behavior. Having plug-n-play reasoning components in the agent's planning layer or task sequencer/executor are also appropriate within the context of NASA's 3T architecture for autonomous control of robotic agents and NASA's Remote Agent architecture developed under DS3 program.
Nov 2001: Marine Corp System Command awards a SBIR Phase I contract to IAI to develop a Through-the-Wall Imaging Sensor.
The focus of the work will be to exploit what is often called Impulse Radar or Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Radar to provide a capability for the clandestine determination of the location, armament, and other tactical information on personnel and equipment/materiel through a wall from a remote location. IAI will collaborate with Time Domain Corporation (TDC), which holds many patents of the core UWB technology. Currently, there are no fielded capabilities for through-the-wall imaging in the military. Some companies have indicated that there is some capability but either the display of information requires an engineer to interpret or there are too few materials that can be seen through to make it feasible. IAI and TDC have already implemented prototype UWB Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) which can see through walls. Our goal for this new contract is to significantly improve the performance of current system for through the wall imaging, to improve the resolution of the resulting images so that the image will be able to show if a moving person is carrying a weapon, and if so to allow the class of weapon to be identified. Other improvements over the state of the art will also be made in range, and standoff distance. The basic technology is based on the availability of very low-cost ultra-high precision delays. Using these delay circuits, Impulse Radar systems can be built which have no carrier frequency. The only signals transmitted are single impulses which have very wide bandwidth, and can be generated by a single transistor which is either on or off. The advantages of this paradigm include robustness to multipath, low probability of detection, low power, trivial implementation of true time delay for electronically steer-able phased arrays, and enhanced SAR imaging capability.
Nov 2001: NASA awards a SBIR Phase I contract to IAI to develop a low-cost and low-power communication interface for wireless sensors.
In this effort IAI will design a wireless module for transmitting sensor data to a control network for propulsion system testing. This wireless module will be based on a Time Modulated Ultra-Wideband (TM-UWB) transceiver. With TM-UWB, radio communication is no longer by radio waves, but instead by impulses. Because only pulses are transmitted, and because there is no carrier frequency, there is no up conversion and no down conversion required, and the output stage is a single transistor which creates a binary pulse, all resulting in decreased radio size and complexity. Impulses in the time domain generate very wide bandwidth signals in the frequency domain. TM-UWB will allow us to support more non-interfering channels than traditional wireless technologies. By adopting IEEE 1451 standard for smart networked sensors, we can make this wireless sensor interface architecture independent of sensor’s physical implementation. Our TM-UWB wireless sensor communication technology has the potential to leapfrog the problems presently being encountered with Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11b, and 3G.
Nov 2001: NASA awards IAI a Phase I SBIR to develop a simulator to study airspace ecology.
Existing airspace simulators measure performance given a particular system configuration. Under Free Flight, the system configuration will shift continuously as individuals alter their behaviors in response to each other's actions. IAI will adapt its existing agent-based airspace simulator to study the dynamic behavior of the national airspace using concepts used to study ecologies or economies, to find configurations in which what is good for individuals is good for everyone.
This effort will also provide an abstract way to represent NAS communication protocols (e.g. handoffs and clearances) and the events that trigger them, so that these protocols can be changed by the user without reprogramming.
Nov 2001: Intelligent Automation to participate in the development of a NAS-Wide Modeling and Simulation toolbox for NASA Ames.
Intelligent Automation is one of the principle members of the Raytheon team that has been awarded the initial development task from NASA's Ames Research Center for the Creation of a Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Capability to Support NAS-Wide Analyses of Advanced ATM tools and Concepts. The task order was awarded under NASA's Air Traffic Management System Development and Integration (ATMSDI) contract.
Nov 2001: DARPA awards a contract to IAI and Penn. State University to develop a Novel Integrated Approach to Robust and Scalable Cognitive Agent Design.
IAI and Pennsylvania State University (PSU) will participate in DARPA's Ultra*log program to develop a Novel Integrated Approach to Robust and Scalable Cognitive Agent Design. The main focus of the proposed research, in this four year effort, is the development of breakthrough technology based on theory of chaos, knowledge mining, and market based control theoretic principles combined with chaos to improve scalability and robustness of DARA's Cougaar Architecture. Such a development will introduce new-operation capabilities in Cougaar in terms of dynamic fault isolation and recovery, dynamic adaptation to environment and variable fidelity to adaptive processes. PSU will lead this effort as the prime contractor.
Nov 2001: NASA awards contract to IAI to develop a Docking Sensor and Guidance System for Unmanned Micro-Satellites.
In this effort IAI will develop a low cost autonomous satellite-docking sensor based on Time Modulated Ultra-Wideband (TM-UWB) technology integrated with a supervised intelligent control approach for steering micro-satellites during the final approach. The proposed docking sensor will precisely determine relative position and attitude (RPA), in all six degrees of freedom, between the target spacecraft and the transfer vehicle. With the increase in the number of satellites for various commercial and research missions for servicing and re-supply missions, the proposed technology to autonomous docking will provide significantly reduced operation costs, increased repeatability, reliability, and safety.
Oct 2001: NSF/DOT awards a grant for exploratory research on traffic management and route guidance using agents approach.
The challenge is to create a methodology that achieves an efficient reallocation of network capacity over time and space without seriously violating any individual user's preferences for mode, routing, departure, and/or arrival time. In this research effort, Intelligent Automation, Inc., will explore a negotiation-based approach to traffic management and route guidance. Advances in information and communication systems are used to create a more intelligent and responsive system. On the supply-side, network-wide control is achieved through coordination among highly distributed network managers and intersection agents. Intelligent in-vehicle routing and navigation systems (IRANS) support more efficient pre-trip route planning and en-route wayfinding among drivers. Information Service Providers (ISPs) serve to bridge network managers and drivers (demand-side) by coordinating information exchange and negotiation of best routes.
Oct 2001: Department of Commerce awards IAI a SBIR Phase II contract to develop a system that could track fire fighters inside a building from outside.
IAI and Time Domain Corporation, Huntsville, AL, will jointly develop a prototype radio named Ultra-wideband Location Tracking Radio (Ultra) that is expected to be able to precisely pinpoint the location of firefighters as well as provide digital communications. The Ultra prototype is expected to incorporate Time Domain®'s PulsON® chipset. TM-UWB's radio transmissions provide inherent high-precision location information, resist interference, provide robust operation in complex urban and in-building settings, offer high performance digital transmission and do not operate on a specific assigned frequency. TM-UWB is the underlying architecture of Time Domain's PulsON chipset, transmitting millions of low power, precisely-timed pulses across a wide swath of spectrum. The Ultra Radio will be a small, light, battery-operated device that would be integrated with the firefighter's uniform. It is projected to have a useable range of 100 to 200 meters and operate in the demanding environment faced by fire fighters; extremely high temperatures, heavy smoke and steamy conditions. The Ultra Radio represents a potential leap forward in fire fighter safety and communications.
Oct 2001: Department of Education awards IAI contract to build multisensory language development tool for preliterate children.
Under this contract, IAI will investigate synthesized speech intelligibility within this audience, determine the appeal of synthesized voices to children, design and build a prototype device, and field-test the tool with children with speech and language disabilities.
September 2001: Office of Naval Research awards contract to IAI to develop carrier-based weapons transport vehicle.
IAI has been awarded a Phase II contract from the Navy to develop a Hybrid Hexapod Robotic Vehicle (HHRV) for use as a heavy-lift, reconfigurable, omni directional, weapons transport system on aircraft carriers. The HHRV is a hybrid vehicle integrating features of both wheeled and legged mechanisms. Actuated wheels attached to the end of the legs provide the drive mechanism for the platform. The direction of each wheel can be individually controlled, making it omni-directional. A scissor drive enables leg motion in the vertical direction for “stepping over” obstacles. The HHRV is capable of maneuvering both below-deck and on-deck. For use below-deck, the HHRV can move down narrow passageways and through elevator doors easier than existing forklift vehicles or skids. For additional information, see AI & Robotics .
August 2001: Professor Soundar Kumara of Pennsylvania State University to spend sabbatical at IAI.
Dr. Kumara is a Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State. He also holds a joint appointment with the Computer Science and Engineering Department. He will be with us for the remainder of calendar 2001 as a Visiting Scholar, while he is on sabbatical leave. See details.
July 2001: IAI awarded NAVSEA contract to improve data networks onboard submarines.
IAI has recently been awarded a contract with NAVAL Sea Systems Command to develop a low cost, low risk, innovative approach to implementing data networks for connecting sensors to C4I systems within a submarine. See details.
July 2001: IAI seals Army Phase II contract to improve noise elimination for enhanced speech recognition.
Eliminating noise from communication channels is important for both military and commercial applications. Conventional approaches to noise elimination use only one sensor, i.e. the ordinary microphone. Although noise can be eliminated, the distortion of the speech signal due to signal processing actually reduces speech recognition rates even compared to the original noisy speech signal. In this project, Intelligent Automation, Inc. will develop an algorithm that fuses information from different forms of speech sensors. In particular, we will fuse information from a new type of microphone called a Glottal Electromagnetic Micropower Sensor (GEMS) microphone developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), camera images quantifying lip motion, bone conduction microphones, and ordinary microphones. The work will require refinement of our previous work on camera sensors for quantifying lip motion, and refinement of the GEMS sensor developed by LLNL, as well as further development of our signal fusion methodology. Our results to date have clearly demonstrated the feasibility of our proposed approach, however substantial additional algorithmic and hardware development work is still needed.
June 2001: IAI has recently been awarded a contract with Naval Air Warfare Center to redesign the side lateral engine mounts on the E-2C Hawkeye.
The original design was able to isolate vibration but compressed significantly during arrested landings, causing blade tip curl in the engine's turbine. To prevent this, the engine mount was reconfigured to be, in effect, a solid bar. This design, though, transmits undesireable vibration to the airframe. IAI has proposed to redesign the mount to isolate vibration under normal operating conditions, yet rigid under shock loads such as imperfect landings or catapult takeoffs. To acheive this goal, IAI has teamed with Lord Corporation - a leader in vibration isolation mounts for industrial and aerospace applications.
June 2001: IAI has been awarded a Phase II SBIR contract from NASA Johnson Space Center to apply our "teach-by-showing" technology to a robotic astronaut assistant.
If robots are to be useful assistants in space, it will not be practical to pre-program a robot for every conceivable task. The astronaut will wish to interact with the robot in the performance of a complex task, guide the robot during the performance of the task, and have the robot incrementally learn from the experience. It will also be necessary for the robot to determine the intent of the user and be able to learn from user actions to improve its performance.
June 2001: Naval Air Warfare Center awards IAI contract to design Web-based advisor for instructional designers.
This automated tool, "The Instructional Designer's Workbench," will support courseware authors by advising the author on relevant cognitive issues and learning principles and how they should impact design of instruction, especially for Web-based applications. An instructional designer will use this expert system as he/she considers and implements the design for an instructional program.