CC* Strategy-Campus: Adaptive Spatiotemporal Data Ecosystem for Intelligent Integration of Cloud/Edge Involving Human Agents

Louisiana State University (LSU), with support from the CC* Strategy-Campus award, is enhancing its cyberinfrastructure (CI) to address the gap between domain researchers’ computing needs and the limited data collection capabilities in rural coastal areas where network and computing resources are inadequate. By utilizing cost-effective, high-sensitivity devices such as smart cameras, drones, and health sensors, LSU aims to create a scalable Spatiotemporal Data Ecosystem. This ecosystem collects and stores large volumes of diverse sensor data from these communities, enabling LSU researchers to perform specialized data analytics. This project expands LSU researchers' ability to advance their work, particularly in biomedical, healthy built environments, and coastal research. Additionally, it bolsters existing communication and computing infrastructures, promotes interdisciplinary research, and paves the way for new research opportunities. The proposed ecosystem includes two core components: (1) an HPC cluster, offering domain experts a complete solution for data sharing, storage, and analytics, and (2) an edge server to facilitate remote sensing data collection. To ensure an optimized design that meets the needs of domain researchers, this project follows a structured plan aligned with four strategic objectives: (1) identifying scientific use cases and representative users; (2) documenting technical requirements of data analytics, networking, storage, user interface, and security by domain researchers; (3) creating a data ecosystem design that complies with the technical requirements of domain researchers; (4) devising an operational strategy to enhance and sustain the data ecosystem. These objectives form the foundation for advancing LSU's capacity to drive scientific discovery through a robust CI. This project is jointly funded by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). 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.