CCNY Lecture Series on Computer Vision, Robotics and Human-Computer Interaction

Title:  Sensor/Actuator Coordination and Applications

Abstract

The talk discusses sensor/actuator coordination and dynamic resource management for a hybrid sensor/actuator network, which consists of a large number of static sensors and relatively small number of mobile robotic sensors. The combination of a wireless sensor network and a multi-robot system enhances each other's capability by dynamically managing the network resources. The static wireless sensor network provides collaborative sensing, communication, coordination and navigation to a multi-robot system and human operators. The mobile robots augment sensor networks' capability by their mobility and advanced sensing, communication and computation capability. This talk discusses some of the research problems in a hybrid sensor/actuator network including a scalable distributed graph model, mobile sensor navigation in sensor networks and simultaneous localization and navigation.

Biography

Jindong Tan received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Michigan State University in 2002. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Michigan Technological University. Dr. Tan's research foci are hybrid sensor/actuator networks and body area sensor networks. Dr. Tan is the PI/Co-PI of many research projects supported by the National Science Foundation, Army Research Lab, CERDEC, Michigan Space Grant Consortium, and Michigan Tech Research Excellence Fund. Dr. Tan is part of the team for the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory's Northern Site project. His current effects in hybrid sensor network include (a) the development of a distributed dynamic model using graph theory; (b) self-organization algorithms to enhance sensing and communication using mobility; (c) dynamic clustering and collaborative sensing for energy efficient routing and target tracking; (d) coordination and navigation algorithms for a complex network of mobile and static sensors; (e) sensor network applications in Intelligent Transportation Systems. Dr. Tan is also interested in Body Sensor Network (BSN) research which consists of a hybrid of wearable, ingestible and implantable wireless miniature sensors, which collectively monitor the medical condition of a patient and provide physicians with immediate feedback. His research work has innovative merits in ultra-low power, reliable communication and sensor fusion for body area sensor networks and embedded bioinformatics for cardio-vascular disease.