Overview
Technology that is valuable to the society is almost always multi-disciplinary, bringing together advances in a variety of scientific and technological areas (mechanical, electrical, chemical, electronic and software systems). For example, automobiles, airplanes, manufacturing machines, surgical robots, and on and on. Our lab embraces this idea to the core and is focused on bringing an open multi-disciplinary technology-based problem-solving approach to complex societal issues.
As the end-user-value of the solutions grow, so does the complexity of the underlying systems – the complexity grows exponentially. Such complexity leads to major challenges in – how do design the complex systems optimally to meet the functional objectives while satisfying the many operational constraints, how do we define the function objectives of such a complex system with sufficient precision, how do we verify that the designed system performs as required, and most importantly, how do we verify and confirm that the designed system will not perform in unsafe fashion. Our lab is dedicated to addressing the above questions.
Two of the most rapidly advancing technological areas are connectivity and autonomy. Dramatic improvements in sensing, actuation, control theory, machine learning, artificial intelligence and optimization techniques have resulted in significant strides in autonomous capabilities. Similarly, advances in communications and network technologies have resulted in very high throughput and bandwidth wireless communications, leading to significant strides in connected individual systems that can perform collectively towards larger common goals. There are many solutions that are leveraging either or both. We are in particular drawn to solutions that enhance safety and security for human beings under a variety of scenarios – be it when they are walking down the road, riding an automobile, working in a factory, working on the road, etc.
Vision:
Our Founding Director HIAS Fellow Prof. Karl Hedrick laid out a clear vision towards safety and autonomous transportation. Prof. Karl Hedrick unfortunately passed away in Feb 2017, but his legacy continues as we enthusiastically continue the execution of his vision.
At the Connected Autonomous Safe Technologies (CAST) Lab, our vision is to
- Research and develop technology solutions that enhance the safety and security for human beings by leveraging connectivity and autonomy.
- Research underlying fundamental technological questions related to analysis (and understanding), (optimal) synthesis, and functional verification of large scale multi-disciplinary systems.
Rellis Hangar :
Our Lab (Doherty 305) : Picture yet to be added
