The University of North Carolina at Charoltte is planning to join the Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) entitled "Center for Safety, Security, and Rescue Research Center (SSR-RC)" which is a multi- university center comprised of the University of Minnesota (lead institution), the University of Denver and the University of Pennsylvania. The Center focuses on conducting integrative, multi-disciplinary research in autonomous systems to improve homeland security and emergency response.
The proposed site will enable industry-oriented and application-grounded research projects, and will pose unusual opportunities for leveraging the research strengths and diverse expertise of the faculty in robotics, computer vision, multimedia data processing, networking, interactive visualization, cyber security, and nursing care in the College of Computing and Informatics (CCI), College of Engineering (COE), and College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) at UNC Charlotte. The proposed new site will, therefore, align its mission with the existing centers mission on SSR and also extend the scope of SSR to healthcare and manufacturing, focusing on injury prevention, patient care, and assistive care for the elderly.
The proposed site will develop SSR technologies useful for key industries, and facilitate fast technology transfer. The partnerships forged via the proposed site with industries will directly impact economic development and job creation. The PIs state they would create opportunities for student training through the IUCRC site's industrial research projects; and broaden participation via existing STAR Alliance, REU Site programs and outreach to high schools and the general community at large.
We have successfully conducted the planning meeting for establishing a new site of the multi-university NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC): Safety, Security, and Rescue (SSR) Research Center (RC) at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The SSR-RC involves the University of Minnesota (lead), the University of Denver, and the University of Pennsylvania. As the result of the meeting, we have attracted sufficient industry members for our site and submitted a proposal for establishing a new site of SSR-RC at UNC Charlotte, which has been funded successfully by NSF, and our site has been formally established in May 2013. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Our new site aligns its mission with the center’s mission on SSR and also extend the scope of SSR to healthcare, energy, material handling, and manufacturing, by focusing on human safety, injury prevention, and patient care. Therefore, our new site’s mission is to conduct integrative and multi-disciplinary research on computation-driven robotic and sensor systems, augmented by data analysis to improve the safety, security, and well-being of humans. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE The new site will pose unusual opportunities for leveraging the research strengths and diverse expertise of the faculty in robotics, computer vision, machine learning, multimedia data processing, networking, interactive visualization, cyber security, and nursing care at UNC-Charlotte and the other university sites of the SSR-RC. In the process of establishing the new site, we have hosted numerous lab tours and demos to introduce our research activities and results to potential industry members and the communities at large. Such outreach efforts have generated very positive results in increasing the public understanding of the potential benefits of our research. Our students have also been exposed to relevant problems in many application areas through the interaction with potential industry members.
