Smart America Challenge “the Internet of Things”

Imagine vehicles that can make their own way through a battlefield to pick up the wounded, health information that follows patients from home to hospital to doctor’s office, and disaster response systems that help coordinate humans, robots and dogs. Th …

Imagine vehicles that can make their own way through a battlefield to pick up the wounded, health information that follows patients from home to hospital to doctor’s office, and disaster response systems that help coordinate humans, robots and dogs. These are just a few of the potential benefits of cyber-physical systems-also sometimes referred to as the “Internet of things”-which was demonstrated at the SmartAmerica Expo on June 11, 2014, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Organized by the White House Office of Science of Technology Policy and Presidential Innovation Fellows, the goal of the SmartAmerica Challenge was to demonstrate how cyber-physical systems and the Internet of things can boost American competitiveness and provide concrete socio-economic benefits such as job creation, new business opportunities, economic growth, and improved quality of life.

In collaboration with CIIGAR Lab at Computer Science Department, ECE’s Integrated Bionic MicroSystems Laboratory attended the challenge under the Smart Emergency Response Systems (SERS) team which included Boeing, Mathworks, National Instruments, MIT Media Lab, University of Washington, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and University of North Texas. SERS was one of 24 technical teams attending the challenge and was selected as one of the four highlighted teams to present at the White House on the day before the Smart America Expo. The cyber-enabled Search and Rescue Dogs developed at NCSU was highlighted both by John Holdren (Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy) during the White House presentation and by Todd Park (United States Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President) during the Expo as one of the up and coming technologies that demonstrates how Internet of Things would shape the future. Dr. Alper Bozkurt (ECE) and Dr. David Roberts (CS) attended both events along with graduate students Rita Brugarolas, Jose Valero Sarmiento, Sean Mealin, John Majikes and Pu Yang presenting the cyber integration and coordination between dogs, robotic vehicles, humanoids and drones during the Expo.

Credit: Dr. Alper Bozkurt

The cyber-integration of dogs, drones and humanoids (Atlas from Boston Dynamics) during Smart America Expo.