NASHVILLE, Tenn. ñ T. John Koo, assistant professor of computer
engineering, has been recognized with a CAREER award from the National
Science Foundation.
The Faculty Early Career Development awards are considered the NSF‘s
most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. Koo will receive
$400,000 over five years to support his efforts to pioneer a new
science that will help engineers do a better job of designing the wide
array of “smart devices” which contain microchips and are spreading
rapidly throughout modern society.
According to the National Science Foundation, CAREER awards support
exceptionally promising college and university junior faculty who are
committed to the integration of research and education. The awards
recognize faculty members, new in their careers, who are most likely to
become the academic leaders of the 21st century.
Not counting personal computers with their printers and peripherals,
the average household already contains some 40 to 50 tiny smart devices
scattered throughout their home, and experts predict that this number
could grow tenfold in the next decade or two. Today, microchips are
embedded in cell phones, washers and dryers, refrigerators and
microwave ovens, televisions and stereos, remote controllers and garage
door openers.
These “information appliances” bring many obvious benefits: Without
them, phones would all still be tethered to wires, dryers wouldn‘t turn
off automatically when the clothes are dry, CDs and DVDs wouldn‘t
exist, and people would still have to get out of the car to open the
garage door.
In the case of automobiles, which come loaded with as many as 100
microchips in high-end models, they improve fuel efficiency, help
maintain control of the car in dangerous conditions and deploy airbags
to protect the occupants. Not only have homes and automobiles rapidly
become dependent on such devices, but they are spreading through
aviation, medicine, manufacturing, the military ñ virtually every
corner of society.
But the trend also has a down side. The marriage of digital processors
and sensors with mechanical systems ñ what engineers call “embedded
hybrid systems” ñ produces devices that are much more complex than the
mechanical and electrical systems that they are replacing. In addition,
hybrid systems interact with their environment and each other, adding
yet another level of complexity. The net result is that more things can
go wrong. As a consequence, hybrid systems are significantly more
difficult to design and test.
That is where Koo comes in. “Traditionally, we have had mechanical
engineers and physicists who focus on the analog aspect of a design,
and we have had electrical engineers and computer scientists who focus
on its discrete, digital aspects,” Koo says. “But now, since these
things are coupling together, we need to look at how the various pieces
interact much more closely, and we need a new systems science to do
that.”
To help provide a basis for this new science, Koo is combining two
mathematical methods ñ “multi-resolution analysis” and “level set
methods” ñ to improve the design of hybrid systems. Multi-resolution
analysis can create a mathematical model of a hybrid design that is
detailed enough to be predictive but efficient enough to run on
standard workstations. The level set method predicts how the model will
evolve, including how it will react to various environmental factors.
When combined, the two techniques should have the capability to predict
how a system will perform under a wide variety of conditions.
Current simulation techniques can predict how a cell phone design, for
example, will perform under specific combinations of important factors,
such as heat, humidity, battery charge, signal strength and distortion.
Koo‘s approach, by contrast, holds the promise of predicting how a
design will work in all combinations of important variables, making it
much easier to pinpoint situations where the design is most likely to
fail.
To double-check the accuracy of the design tools that he is developing,
Koo is creating a “test bed” that allows him to closely monitor the
behavior of real-life hybrid systems and compare it to his software‘s
predictions. The two systems he has selected for this purpose are a
reconfigurable electronic power circuit and a multi-vehicle control
system. The power circuit is a DC-to-DC converter, a component that is
used in a wide variety of electronic devices to match the voltage
coming from the power source to that which is needed by the electronic
components. The vehicles he is using are model helicopters, which are
among the most difficult vehicles to control autonomously.
“My hope is that these tools will help us to finally realize the dream
of safe and reliable autonomous control systems for cars and other
vehicles ñ smart structures that can respond dynamically to earthquakes
and severe storms and advanced biomedical devices,” Koo says.
For more news about Vanderbilt research, visit Exploration, Vanderbilt‘s online research magazine, at www.exploration.vanderbilt.edu.
Media contact: David F. Salisbury, (615) 343-6803
david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu