IUCRC Phase I University of Southern California: Center for Intelligent Distributed Embedded Applications and Systems (IDEAS)

Internet of Things devices – more than 43 billion in use – make our lives easier. Today’s devices mostly watch, collect, and transmit data to be analyzed elsewhere. The IDEAS Center will drive current technology to enable devices to analyze the data, learn from data, make decisions and act on those decisions in coordination with other devices. These smarter devices will revolutionize every aspect of life: healthcare, infrastructure, agriculture, ecommerce, transportation, microelectronics, manufacturing, entertainment, aerospace and many more. IDEAS will collaborate with companies in all these industries to improve their business practices and provide them with employees trained in these technologies. IDEAS’ work, “Intelligent, Distributed, Embedded, Applications and Systems,” addresses fundamental challenges as the present two-layer structure of the internet (user-end devices at one end and datacenters at the other), evolves into a massive, distributed network of computers that will provide computing as a service. Companies in critical industries must exploit emerging opportunities that are possible as IoT, edge-cloud infrastructure, 5G communications and intelligent computing converge. USC-IDEAS will focus on edge applications such as data driven asset monitoring enabled by low latency inference, multi-agent planning and reconfigurable systems. IDEAS’ technologies will help make access to data, information, and decision making through computers as pervasive and common place as roads, public transportation, hospitals, and other public services that are part and parcel of our daily lives. The technology will also be extremely energy efficient so that businesses can not only radically improve their operating efficiency, but also make their enterprises more environmentally sustainable. IDEAS will train future engineers and scientists from all segments of society to further advance these technologies. Collaborative mentoring will promote entrepreneurial research among the students to foster the next generation of ground-breaking discoveries. IDEAS will build and maintain a single Center-wide data repository. It will be maintained for IUCRC Phases I and II, and for any subsequent years of center operation. It will be developed following IUCRC best practices for securing, documenting, and reporting data. While initially it will be cloud-based, we will integrate any physical infrastructure requirements such as servers or other hardware as needed. Strong password-protection and duo-authentication properties will be integrated as needed. 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.