EFRI-ARESCI: Event-Driven Sensing for Enterprise Reconfigurability and Optimization

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

PI: Christos G. Cassandras Institution: Boston University Proposal Number: 0735974 EFRI-ARESCI: Event-Driven Sensing for Enterprise Reconfigurability and Optimization This project, with investigators from Boston University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, seeks a fundamental understanding of reconfigurability and optimization. The modern enterprise encompasses a number of processes that are all subject to changes in operating conditions, some sudden and unexpected, others slower with effects that are not immediately discernible. The proliferation of sensor and sensor network technologies provides the opportunity to enable estimators and controllers designed to rapidly react to perceived changes or detected anomalies and to appropriately reconfigure underlying enterprise components. The goal of this project is to develop a fundamental understanding of reconfigurability based on which analytical methods and explicit reconfiguration algorithms can be derived and evaluated. The vision is a transformation of the enterprise towards not only flexibility, but also responsiveness to unexpected, not directly observable, and possibly adversarial events. The goals of the project are threefold: (i) to contribute to the theoretical foundations of a reconfigurability framework for an enterprise viewed as a large-scale dynamic system; (ii) to bring together and build upon the methodological advances the investigators have made spanning on-line performance sensitivity estimation, detection of random, adversarial and game-theoretic anomalies, robust optimization, and information acquisition systems that all capitalize on sensor and sensor network technologies; and (iii) to explore a critical shift in systems engineering with broad ramifications: replacing traditional fixed-interval, time-driven sampling and data processing by an event-driven approach better suited for large-scale asynchronous distributed environments. An integral part of the proposed project is the application of the ideas and explicit reconfiguration algorithms developed on two complementary test beds: (i) a warehouse with wireless sensor nodes on trucks; and (ii) the OpenAir wireless network over the city of Boston. The project is expected to advance the state-of-the-art in application domains that benefit from reconfigurability, primarily focusing on the enterprise where advances will result in increased energy efficiency, productivity growth, product and service quality, and enhanced workplace safety and security. Plans also include new courses, training graduate students, involving undergraduate students in the project, creating interactive educational software and demos, establishing cross-campus summer internships, and reaching out to high school students through two programs in which the investigators are involved.