IUCRC: UCI: Planning Grant: Proposal Planning Grant: Center for Smart Space Research (CSSR)​

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

Smart spaces are characterized by the presence of smart services built on emerging sensing, computing, and communication technologies. This planning grant will create a multi-university Center for Smart Space Research (CSSR) involving Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the University of California, Irvine (UCI). CSSR takes an integrated approach to make them versatile and adaptable to situations by ensuring the availability and accessibility of data, knowledge, and services. This planning grant will identify research challenges to build application-focused smart spaces. Applications encompass health and disease monitoring systems, smart buildings, public spaces and cities, mission-critical systems, transportation, intelligent manufacturing, collaborative robotics, and others. The center’s focus will involve four main areas of relevance to industry, university, and society: creation of adaptive computing and communications infrastructure; trustworthy acquisition, processing, interpretation and sustainability of data and knowledge; applications that span all aspects of life and the environment; and creation of diverse and competent workforce. UCI researchers will collaborate with industrial organizations, technology developers, and users, to investigate: adaptive and resilient multiscale network communications; data-driven real-time adaptations for mission-critical applications; multi-tier and edge-cloud computing methods, IoT data management and security/privacy techniques for instrumented spaces. These collaborations will facilitate transition of research to practice in smartspaces. The planning phase of CSSR will impact research and pedagogical activities at UCI and stimulate technology transfer to collaborating industries. Our work will emphasize smartspace applications to improve quality of life and enhance community resilience in challenging situations. CSSR will leverage ongoing and future projects to reach underprivileged populations with varying socio-economic backgrounds. UCI is a Hispanic-serving institution with a diverse student body. The planning grant workshops will promote interactions with industry and create opportunities to recruit and mentor diverse groups of students in undergraduate capstone projects, graduate courses and internships creating a future workforce in the area of smartspaces. In the near future, access to smart spaces and smart infrastructure will impact every individual and will greatly improve quality of life. CSSR activities in fostering innovation in accessible smart spaces will play a major role in the future world. The planning phase will serve as a platform for meetings, discussions, and workshops, to identify critical research to guide the development of smart spaces. CSSR will maintain a publicly-accessible repository comprising meeting materials, workshop information, research topics and details, and publications. This repository will be maintained at a publicly accessible URL at RIT for the lifetime of the center. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.