USC has faculty in the networking area who have been actively studying vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) as well as control system theory for transportation systems. However, our activity in the area of wireless communications for vehicular networks has not been as extensive – thus, this visit and collaboration from Prof. Erik Ström from Chalmers will be instrumental in increasing the amount of research in this area as well as its visibility. European researchers have been much more active in the area of wireless communications for vehicular systems and our faculty and students will certainly benefit from Dr. Ström’s research expertise. Dr. Ström currently heads the Division for Communications Systems, Information Theory, and Antennas at the Department of Signals and Systems at Chalmers and leads the competence area Sensors and Communications at the traffic safety center SAFER, which is hosted by Chalmers. In fact, Dr. Ström’s pre‐eminence in the area of wireless communication systems for vehicular networks was evidenced by his lead editor role for the Proceedings of the IEEE special issue on Vehicular Communications (2011). Professor Ström and I initiated discussion of a joint project in June 2012 when I visited Goteborg University. Follow‐on discussions occurred in January 2013 prompting the proposal of a visit by Prof. Ström to USC to continue the collaboration. We have a junior Ph.D. student (Mr. Vishnu Ratnam) who is working on the extension of a hybrid channel estimation (N. Michelusi, U. Mitra, A. Molisch and M. Zorzi, UWB Sparse/Diffuse Channels, Part I: Channel Models and Bayesian Estimators, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol.60, no.10, pp.5307‐5319, October 2012 and UWB Sparse/Diffuse Channels, Part II: Estimator Analysis and Practical Channels, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol.60, no.10, pp.5320‐5333, October 2012)algorithm that we had developed to the time‐varying case which is relevant to vehicular communications. The visiting student who did the original work, Dr. Nicolo Michelusi has returned to USC as a post‐doc, making this a particularly good time for Prof. Ström to visit (while Dr. Michelusi is at USC).

Our anticipated results include conference and journal publications, co‐authored by Mitra, Strom and relevant students at USC and Chalmers. Furthermore, we propose to pursue further funding options to enable future visits between the researchers at USC and Chalmers.

• Driving Simulator project team led by P. Ioannou is working on Safety Evaluation of Advanced Driver Attention Systems (ADAS) & Truck Driving in a Platoon 
• Large-Scale Software-Radio Testbed project aims to build one of the best software radio testbeds in the world at USC
• CommNets Seminar Series developed by R. Jain in 2010 targets high quality speakers in communications, networks and controls
• Integrated Systems Seminar Series developed by H. Hashemi in 2011 targets academia and industry speakers in Integrated Systems, Circuits, and Devices with wide range of applications including communication, computation, networking, sensing, and imaging
• Learn more about MHI supported projects and seminars in our Annual Report

• 6/13/13: Alumni Networking Reception in San Jose – re-connect with former classmates and meet local alums with the possibility for future collaboration. Tickets – $25
• Fall 2013: 4th Annual Research Festival (Date TBD)
• June 2014: Profs. Chongwu Zhou & Stephen Cronin won a bid to host the 15th International Conference on the Science and Application of Nanotubes at USC.  MHI plans to subsidize registration costs for USC EE attendees
• 9/28/12: Engineering & Autism: a national workshop at USC – leading Autism and engineering researchers spoke about early detection and intervention and advances in sensing, behavioral signal processing, computing and behavioral informatics that hold promise for supporting Autism research and clinical translation

• There have been 3 generations of Scholars – view the past and present scholars
• The current 2012-13 scholars used their project funding to create the Ph.D. Student Seminar Series to improve and foster a tight-knit community among electrical engineering students
• Chuan Wang, Postdoc, UC, Berkeley, 2010-11 MHI Ph.D. Scholar gave a talk at the Ph.D. Student Seminar Series
• Research Videos
• Scholar application and benefits

• May – June 2013: Dr. Andrea Gasparri, Assistant Professor, Roma Tre University, Italy
• February 2013: Professors Shamgar Gurevich and Alexander Fish, University of Wisconsin Department of Mathematics
• February 2013: Professors Sadaoki Furui and Keisuke Yamada and 7 students from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech’s Global Leadership Program)
• March 2012: Dr. Lin Zhang, Tsinghua University, China
• January – March 2012: Dr. Zijian Tang, Research scientist of TNO, the Hague, the Netherlands

Dr. Gasparri is a young expert with rapidly growing recognition in the emerging area of distributed networked robotics, a field at the intersection of control, robotics, and networking that is currently gaining in importance. Dr. Gasparri will be visiting USC from May 15 to June 30, 2013. His has an office in PHE 414.

During his visit, he will have close research interactions with Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme and Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari. Because of his interest in network control, he will also likely interact with many colleagues with interests in this area: Edmond Jonckheere, Michael Neely, Rahul Jain, and David Kempe. We could also possibly use this opportunity to organize an internal USC workshop on networks and control, so that his visit may catalyze collaborations between faculty here working on various facets of this topic. He will also give two research talks to the department.

Biography: Andrea Gasparri received the Graduate degree (cum laude) in computer science in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in computer science and automation in 2008, both from the University of Rome Roma Tre, Rome, Italy. He is currently an Assistant Professor for the Engineering Department, University of Rome Roma Tre. His current research interests include mobile robotics, sensor networks, and, more generally, networked multi-agent systems.

Below are two talks that will be given during his visit – dates TBD

Title: Gossip Based Centroid and Common Reference Frame Estimation in Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract: In this work the decentralized centroid and common reference frame estimation problem for multi-agent systems in absence of any common reference frame is investigated. Each agent is deployed in a 2-dimensional space and is assumed to be able to sense the relative position, i.e., distance and angle, of the neighboring agents with respect to its local reference frame. The proposed algorithm is gossip based, i.e., only asynchronous and random pairwise communications are allowed between the agents. The convergence properties of the proposed algorithm are characterized and its sensitiveness against additive noise on the relative distance measurements is investigated. An experimental validation of the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is provided. Furthermore, an extension of the algorithm for the estimation of the network centroid of a multi-agent system deployed in a d-dimensional space is proposed. A theoretical analysis of its convergence properties is carried out. In particular, it is shown that if the graph representing the network topology is rigid, then the proposed algorithm solves the network centroid estimation problem.

Title: Swarm Aggregation Algorithm for Multi Robot Systems with Input Saturation and Local Interaction

Abstract: In this work, a novel decentralized swarm aggregation algorithm for multi-robot systems is proposed. In this framework, the interaction among robots is limited to their visibility neighborhood, i.e., robots that are within the visibility range of each other. Furthermore, to better comply with the hardware/software limitations of mobile robotic platforms, robots actuators are assumed to be saturated. An enhanced version of the proposed control law is also discussed. Improvements mainly concerns two aspects: i) the actuator saturation can be asymmetric with respect to the forward and backward velocity to better comply with the hardware/software specifications, and ii) the obstacle avoidance algorithm can be more easily integrated within the local control law of each robot ensuring a safer navigation in an environment filled with obstacles. A theoretical characterization of the main properties of the proposed swarm aggregation algorithms is provided. Simulations have been carried out to validate the theoretical results. Furthermore, experiments have been performed with a team of low-cost mobile robots to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in a real-world environment.

Each year a group of Ph.D. students from the electrical engineering department are selected as Ming Hsieh Institute Ph.D. Scholars. These students are chosen by a faculty committee on the basis of their research accomplishments and desire for an academic career beyond the Ph.D. The MHI Ph.D. Scholars are considered the top students in the department and prove to be leaders.

To help scholars in their career development, each of them receives:

• a cash award
• mentor-ship and recommendations from department faculty (eg. one-on-one faculty lunch meetings)
• research presentation critiquing and filming – view scholar research videos
• funding for travel to give talks at other institutions where they can develop collaborations, increase visibility and receive feedback on their work
• funding to develop and organize a workshop/project to encourage student collaboration, initiate innovative ideas and demonstrate remarkable research

The current 2012-13 scholars used their project funding to create the Ph.D. Student Seminar Series to improve and foster a tight-knit community among electrical engineering students. The ultimate goal for the seminar series is to establish new student-level collaborations among different research groups in the department. Students benefit by giving talks to a broad audience which train them for job interviews, qualifying exams and other research talks.

Since the seminar series began, eight students and visiting speaker Martin Lavery, Glasgow University, UK gave presentations. There was also a seminar on Proposal Writing, where Professors Krishna Nayak and Steve Cronin described the process of writing proposals to federal agencies such as NSF and NIH and how panels review them. Kartik Audhkhasi filmed several of the student presentations, which will be showcased on the MHI website in the near future.

2012-13 Scholars (left – right): Moh Amer, Kartik Audhkhasi, Daphney-Stavroula Zois, Hao Huang and Osonde Osoba

The current scholars are doing an excellent job of continuing student engagement, one of the goals that the 2011-12 scholars developed. The 2011-12 scholars enhanced student collaboration by organizing the first ever students-only social with over 100 Ph.D. students in attendance, and by supporting registration fees for EE students and postdocs to attend NSF Day at USC, which gave attendees the opportunity to network with program managers and build connections. Among the 2011-12 scholars, Bardia Zandian and Srinivas Yerramalli are now Senior Engineers at Qualcomm and Matthew Black is an Actuarial Analyst at Farmers Insurance Group. Chenxi Lin plans to stay at USC for another semester with plans to pursue a postdoc position and Sunil Kumar is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Electrical Engineering at USC.

2011-12 Scholars (left – right): Matthew Black, Bardia Zandian, Sunil Kumar, Srinivas Yerramalli and Chenxi Lin

In addition to continuing student engagement, the current scholars are also focusing on connections with past scholars. To begin collaboration, the scholars invited Chuan Wang, one of the first MHI Ph.D. Scholars who is now a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Berkley, to give a talk at an upcoming seminar on April 23, 2013. “Considering Chuan has been among the first generation of MHI scholars here at USC, I am excited to invite him to give a talk regarding his recent research and career accomplishments” says current MHI scholar Moh Amer.

Selected in 2010, the first generation of scholars successfully organized the First Annual Department Research Festival and the Retreat. They created a great foundation and showcased exceptional leadership skills. We are excited for Chuan Wang’s visit to USC to collaborate with current students and scholars. Some of the other 2010-11 scholars who are pursuing academic careers include Firooz Aflatouni, Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech; Samir Sharma, Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Wisconsin and Prasanta Kumar Ghosh, INSPIRE faculty fellow at Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

2010-11 Scholars at the 1st Annual Research Festival (left – right): Samir Sharma, Omer Faruk Yilmaz and Chuan Wang with MHI Director Shri Narayanan

The Ming Hsieh Institute is excited to have connections with three generations of leaders and showcase their accomplishments.

Past Ph.D. Scholars
Current Ph.D. Scholars
Apply to become an MHI Scholar

The MHI Driving Simulator (DriveSafety DS-100 ) is located in the Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies Laboratory in EEB305.

The below activity update for the driving simulator project was submitted by Petros Ioannou on 4/11/2013.

It is currently used to support the following activities:

Activity 1. Safety Evaluation of Advanced Driver Attention Systems (ADAS): The analysis of ADAS using an actual vehicle could be costly and dangerous as subject drivers cannot be subjected to dangerous driving situations. As a result the use of driving simulators to assess the effectiveness of these systems is crucial. In this activity we are developing vehicle following and lane changing scenarios where different Drivers will operate in conjunction with our version of ADAS which will provide warnings regarding unsafe situations as well as directions when to change lanes or merge into traffic. The driver’s response will be assessed for compliance and safety and used to modify and improve ADAS.

It is important to test the specific driving simulator’s validity before assuming it to be comparable to reality. In order to validate the data obtained using the driving simulator, we first compared the simulator to the real test vehicle to determine the simulator’s ability to provide a realistic driving environment. We plan to perform a series of speed and distance perception in real car and simulator comparison test. In addition to that we plan to compare vehicle following and lane change models corresponding to the same driver in a real car and the simulator in order to evaluate possible response differences.

To perform the above test we need to code the traffic environment the Drivers are going to operate. So far we developed a simulator map that resembles a district near the downtown Los Angeles and developed a methodology for testing the driving simulator versus the real car Driver perception.

Activity 2. Truck Driving in a Platoon: Under this activity we plan to develop a driving environment, which will be used to perform human factors tests associated with trucks in a platoon. In such situations we study how truck drivers respond to joining and exiting a platoon. We will start with manually driven trucks and build on to trucks that can be in the automated mode. In such case the driver response in switching between the manual and automated mode will be studied using the simulator.

Project Proposal approved 11/1/2012:
The driving simulator project will enable USC researchers to carry out various studies that include human factors, vehicle dynamics and interaction with driver, impact of sensors and warnings on driver, impact of different control techniques and automation on driver, driver assistance systems, information systems etc. The simulator can also be used as the starting point to improve its capabilities by developing additional driving scenarios and visualizations so there is also an element of computer science. The driving simulator will be used for research, individual directed research studies and projects. It will be accessible to all members of the EE Department and with permission on a case by case to students and researchers outside the Department. The simulator will be installed in the CATT laboratory at EEB 305.

After some research we selected the DriveSafety DS-100 simulator also used by other institutions and automotive research centers as the most appropriate for our possible research needs. The simulator is a research simulator that has three video channels (monitors) with 110° view angle, force feedback steering wheel, gear shifter, gas and brake pedals. The simulator allows us to create custom driving scenarios leveraging an extensive library of roads, intersections, cultural surroundings, traffic vehicles, pedestrians and other entities along with flexible scripting capabilities. In addition to the library custom 3D object could be imported to the simulator. The system includes powerful real time data collection and performance monitoring capabilities. Driving scenarios include basic autonomous traffic as well as custom-defined scripted vehicle actions and reactions. A broad research community facilitates the sharing of driving scenarios between industry experts. Authors c an control traffic signals, ambient traffic, scripted traffic, roadway friction, weather conditions, etc. Through the use of triggers, virtually any scenario can be designed.

The driving simulator has the ability to simulate 256 totally autonomous interactive ambient vehicles in the simulated environment. Vehicles are created, destroyed and controlled by the system with no scripting or user input required. These vehicles obey traffic laws, signage and signal devices. They interact realistically with other vehicles based on human behavior/decision models and real-time physics-based vehicle dynamics calculations. If specific behavior is desired, vehicles and other entities can be issued script commands through the use of triggers, timers, paths, routes and many other scenario tools.

Other MHI sponsored activities

Current Results submitted by Professor Psounis as of April 2013:
Building upon the design and implementation of the first distributed multiuser MIMO system, we have designed a new system which can scale to hundreds of access points. We have recently completed the implementation of this new architecture and we are currently conducting real-world experiments.

Future goals:
In collaboration with Prof. Hashemi, we are currently working on creating a new software defined radio platform, to be named USC SDR, which eliminates most of the bottlenecks encountered in the design of current software radio architectures, e.g. the requirement to program new schemes in an FPGA, and the difficulty to run real-time experiments for a long time.

Current Results submitted by Professor Psounis as of April 2012:
We have built an experimental testbed comprising of four Access Points (APs) connected to a server, and four clients. All eight wireless nodes are WARP software radios. We have designed and implemented AirSync, a novel scheme which provides timing and phase synchronization accurate enough to enable distributed MU-MIMO to achieve full spatial multiplexing gain. For the purpose of demonstration, we have implemented two MU- MIMO precoding schemes, Zero-Forcing Beamforming (ZFBF) and Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP). In both cases our system nearly achieves the theoretical optimal multiplexing gains. To the best of our knowledge, AirSync offers the first ever realization of the full distributed MU-MIMO multiplexing gain, namely the ability to increase the number of active wireless clients per time-frequency slot linearly with the number of jointly coordinated APs, without reducing the per client rate.

Other MHI sponsored activities

The Ming Hsieh Institute will subsidize registration costs for USC Electrical Engineering attendees (e.g., Ph.D. students, post-docs, and faculty).

Conference details and website coming shortly.

Networks

Design and analysis of communication networks, including next-generation Internet, cooperative wireless networks, optical networks, cognitive radio systems, sensor networks and mobile-based sensing, vehicular networks, underwater networks, and social networks.

Computation & Devices

This thrust focuses on materials, devices, technologies, architectures, and computer tools towards realization energy-efficient, fast, and reliable computation systems beyond Moore’s Law in 2020. Examples include quantum engineering and quantum information processing.

Healthcare

Research and development in devices, signals and systems targeting critical problems in biology and biomedicine with scientific and translational impact on human health and well being.

Cross-Cutting Activities

Activities and programs that seek to enhance the intellectual and social life of the department to benefit faculty and students in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, with the objective to attract and retain the best talents, build an energetic academic environment, and increase visibility.

“We have spent a great week, attending lectures by USC professors, having discussions with USC professors, students and guests, and working for Crowd Funding with USC professors and students. It was a great opportunity for our students, and they learned so many things that could not be achieved if we could not come here. Our students feel very happy and also sad to finish our program at USC. Therefore, we look forward to continuing our collaboration and the exchanging program with USC for the future.” – Professor Sadaoki Furui, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Tokyo Institute of Technology Affiliates

USC Affiliates