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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 111 - Reno, Nevada - March 2013
Agenda Location	4 GENERAL COMMITTEE TECHNICAL SESSION 4.2 Research Institutions, Industry, and University Reports 4.2.2 Universities 4.2.2.1 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne
Title	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne
Presenter	Naira Hovakimyan
Available Downloads*	presentation
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Abstract	Slides from several groups of UIUC are presented. Our group (Naira Hovakimyan) is interested in cooperative missions of multiple UAVs, operating over wireless networks, subject to communication and computational constraints. To extend the communication range, NPS deploys thermal soaring gliders. Current research is looking at integration of atmospheric models into development of guidance, navigation and control laws for development of cooperative missions with the use of soaring gliders. We are also interested in taming of big data and are looking into development of cooperative motion planning algorithms that can unload the human operators from monitoring of routine operations and focus their attention on important events, when critical changes are needed in the system. In our iReCoVeR project (jointly with Kirlik, Bragg, Cao) we are interested in integration of L1 adaptive controller into a broader architecture, which has FDI module, flight envelope estimation and protection schemes and a safety monitoring system, which alerts the pilots of any possible failures in the system, so that the pilot is informed of failures sufficiently ahead of time, even if L1 controller is compensating for those sufficiently well. This way, the pilot can be prepared to take over before any critical failures happen. Together with Lui Sha, we are also looking into integration of these flight control advances with appropriate fault-tolerant software schemes, like simplex architecture, to ensure that the overall architecture can tolerate both concurrent mechanical and software failures. We also have a project with NASA LaRC on integration of small UAVs into National Airspace Systems, where we are focusing on the non-positively controlled airspace and are developing path planning algorithms with account of spatial and temporal constraints. The group of Wai-Tut Fu is looking into human performance modeling to build collective intelligence from distributed cognition. The group of Vasu Salapaka is looking into optimal surveillance with multiple UAVs, focusing on clustering/classification of targets, optimal placement of UAVs, combined locational and multi-hop routing optimization, and dynamic tracking of clusters. The group of Petros Voulgaris and Dusan Stipanovic is looking into supervised coverage control of areas of interest, which can have a potential threat or other issues requiring continuous monitoring. Lui Sha is providing expertize on certification of software systems, focusing on verification of complex systems, comprised of verifiable and non-verifiable components (like human operators). A newly emerging initiative at UIUC is focusing on transitioning advances from aerospace industry to medicine, like robotic surgery. Robotic surgery with only manual operation mode is missing many advanced engineering components. Avionics has added 1) synthetic night vision that allows a pilot to see the airport buildings, runways, ground vehicles, planes and even nearby wind shears during night landing; 2) virtual glide path to assist pilots to land on a moving carrier in high seas; 3) autopilot for high attitude cruise control to reduce pilot stress so that they can perform better for demanding tasks such as landing; and 4) safety protection such as stall warning or mid-air collision avoidance systems. These engineering advances can transform the health care drastically. Specifically, i) with augmented reality, the organs would be rendered semitransparent with the cancerous tumor, blood vessels, and bile duct seen as vivid, solid 3D objects, so that the location and shape of the organ would be tracked as it moved and changed during surgery; ii) with a virtual surgical envelope, a surgeon-delineated dissection plane that clearly encompassed the tumor with a clear tissue margin would be displayed and aligned with the organ in real time; iii) with a safety protection system, during dissection, if surgical instruments were too close to a bile duct or major vessel, the areas to be avoided would be represented with increasingly more intense warning colors, while an optional voice warning and/or force feedback could be used to further enhance safety; and iv) with automation, simple and routine actions could be chosen and specified by the surgeon; with machine learning and system integration, the robotic system as surgical assistant (mobilizing and retracting the liver, camera placement, changing instruments and directing them automatically to the field of view of the camera, providing and evacuating materials like sponges and needles, sensor data analysis, coordination of all functions according to the surgical procedure workflow as seen on the screen and annotated through procedure description and learning) would automatically retract the organ, expose the vital structures coming up next in surgical avoidance, move and focus the camera, coordinate instrument placement and place all vital information appropriately on the surgical display screen.