USMAN KHAN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
What would happen if autonomous computers communicated with each other to create extremely detailed data sets of information? Professor Usman Khan is answering this question through his study of distributed intelligence. If a robot with many arms and wheels were controlled by many individual computers, he explained, it could be more efficient, more secure, and more comprehensive in its data gathering. Most robotic devices operate with a central computer that controls everything, but Professor Khan has more ambitious ideas. “[If I] give separate computer[s] to the camera, the microphone, the temperature sensor, and whatever else the robot has on board,” he explained. “All of these computers or controllers [could] collaborate and coordinate, allowing the robot to do more meaningful work. That’s the idea behind distributed or ‘group’ intelligence.” This approach could actually lead to technological advances in security; with various computers doing an assortment of tasks, autonomous computers aren’t vulnerable to harm even if a hacker gains control of one of the computers. With distributed intelligence, we are removing the single point of failure from a system.
Group intelligence, I learned from Professor Khan, can also be applied to a set of multiple machines. Having large groups of robots roaming and collecting information leads to quick and efficient data. After being given a central task, the robots could communicate to determine which areas each will explore. They can then pool the information into a central database. Why could this be useful? Well, imagine dispersed robots helping firefighters safely gather information about layouts and structures of burning buildings. Imagine the ability to take thousands of small, high resolution images of an object as large as the Statue of Liberty to create a tremendously encapsulating and detailed picture. Imagine quickly assessing damage after a natural disaster or emergency using information gathered simultaneously all over a city or even nation. All of this amazing research has been done in Professor Khan’s Signal Processing and RoboTic Networks (SPARTN) Lab. Undergraduates in the SPARTN Lab often take very large and visionary ideas—such as distributed intelligence—and try to create them on a smaller scale. Professor Khan
enjoys working with undergraduate students on research, bringing even first semester freshmen into his lab! This summer, Professor Khan is working on projects in collaboration with undergraduates that include image tracking, inverted pendulums, and more. The opportunities within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are limitless. “We are pretty much able to do whatever you can imagine,” he said. “As long as students have a lot of imagination and want to build fancy, cool things, we can do it here.” Professor Khan attributes the department’s ability to produce such incredible research to its small size. “I have personally gone to electrical hardware stores with my students in order to pick equipment. The time that we can devote to our students [is huge]. It’s one of the best that I have seen in my own academic career.” —DYLAN HONG ’19
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