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IEEE Santa Clara Valley
Robotics & Automation Society (SCV RAS)


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July Meeting:  July 9, 2008


Date and Time

Wednesday, July 9, 7:00PM Pacific
at 7:00, 5-minute business meeting
at 7:05, speaker presentation

Location

Carnegie Mellon University West Coast (directions http://west.cmu.edu/who_we_are/visitor)

Title

Sun SPOT and its Applications

Speaker

Roger Meike, Sun Microsystems
Arshan Poursohi, Sun Microsystems
Randall (Randy) Smith, Sun Microsystems
Stephen (Steve) Uhler, Sun Microsystems

Abstract

The Sun Small Programmable Object Technology (SPOT) is a small, wireless, battery powered experimental platform. It is programmed almost entirely in Java to allow regular programmers to create projects that used to require specialized embedded system development skills. The hardware platform includes a range of built-in sensors as well as the ability to easily interface to external devices.  Both the hardware and software are open sourced.

This talk describes the Sun SPOT and its applications.

Biographies

Roger Meike:

Roger Meike is Senior Director, Area 51 and Director of Operations, Sun Microsystems Laboratories.  His background is in cognitive science and his career has lead him back and forth between new start companies and large research organizations.  While his background is mostly in software, he also enjoys consorting with hardware folks.  He has been accused of being many things including photo enthusiast, sailor, ham radio operator, musician and techno-geek/nerd.

Arshan Poursohi:

Arshan Poursohi is a Researcher for Sun Microsystems Laboratories, working on the Sun Small Programmable Object Technology (Sun SPOT) project.
 
His research interests include Advanced Network Applications, biologically-inspired computing, Distributed Systems, Intermittently-connected devices, Linux, Mobile Computing, Multi-user cooperative environments, Networking, Peer to peer, practical automated reasoning and Multi-Agent Systems.
 
He grew up near a farm outside of New Zealand, at an early age he learned to use tools and speak using words. Following that he went on to develop systems for locomotion and chemical digestion of organic matter. Then he worked on various models social interaction in small and large groups, which he continues to use today. sometimes.

Stephen Uhler:

Stephen Uhler is the Principal Investigator of the Enterprise PDA project. Before Enterprise PDA, Uhler was the PI for the Brazil project, which included an experimental web application development environment ideal for web-enabling devices, aggregating content from other web applications, and building personal web portals that filter and modify aggregated content.
 
Prior to that, Uhler was the creator of the reverse-proxy, a key component of the sun.net product, the architect and designer of the supplier.net secure supply chain integration system, and a member of the SunLabs TCL project, where he pioneered the TCL embedded web server technology.

Randall B. Smith:

Randy Smith is a Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, where he has been principal investigator in several areas, including projects in visualization technologies and radio frequncy ID tags. He previously worked on the Kansas project, a 2D virtual world for creating mutli-user simulations. Kansas was part of the world's largest study of distributed synchronous small group learning, another research project he lead. He was formerly co-leader of the Self project. Before joining Sun, he worked at Xerox PARC for eight years, where he developed a virtual world programming environment called the Alternate Reality Kit, and, with David Ungar, designed the Self language. His Ph.D. is in theoretical physics from the University of California at San Diego.
 
His hobbies include playing trumpet and jazz piano. He is the trumpet player in the jazz octet Octobop, whose recent CD is available online. 
 
Randy recently represented Sun at the  Santa Fe Institute's Complex Systems Summer School where he worked on a model of migrating computational agents. Here are some photos.
He is proud winner of the Bottle Of TESCO Champagne Award for best essay at the 1997 UNESCO Workshop on Learning Environments!
 

URLS:
http://www.sunspotworld.com/


 

Workshop on SunSPOT:  July 19, 2008

Date and Time

Saturday July 19, 8:30am Pacific

Location

Carnegie Mellon University West Coast (directions http://west.cmu.edu/who_we_are/visitor)

Title

Workshop on Sun SPOT

Speaker

Roger Meike and team of Sun Microsystems 

Abstract

This is a workshop on programming the Sun SPOT on sensor and motor control applications.

Fee is $300, which includes a SunSPOT kit.  A personal laptop is required.  Only checks are accepted.  If no SunSPOT kit is needed, you may audit the workshop for free.

The Sun Small Programmable Object Technology (SPOT) is a small, wireless, battery powered experimental platform. It is programmed almost entirely in Java to allow regular programmers to create projects that used to require specialized embedded system development skills. The hardware platform includes a range of built-in sensors as well as the ability to easily interface to external devices.  Both the hardware and software are open sourced.




August Meeting:  August 6, 2008

Date and Time

Wednesday, August 6, 7:00PM Pacific
at 7:00, 5-minute business meeting
at 7:05, speaker presentation

Location

Carnegie Mellon University West Coast (directions http://west.cmu.edu/who_we_are/visitor)

Title

Cognitive Memory  - Pattern recognition and memory are intertwined in living systems. Learning from nature leads to a new memory architecture that allows computers to deliver superior performance for pattern recognition and adaptive control of complex plants.

Speaker

Dr. Bernard Widrow, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University  

Abstract

Regarding the workings of the human mind, memory and pattern recognition seem to be intertwined. You generally do not have one without the other.  Taking inspiration from life experience, a new form of computer memory has been devised. Certain conjectures about human memory are keys to the central idea. The design of a practical and useful "cognitive" memory system is contemplated, a memory system that may also serve as a model  for many aspects of human memory. The new memory does not function like a computer memory where specific data is stored in specific numbered registers and retrieval is done by reading the contents of the specified memory register, or done by matching key words as with a document search. Incoming sensory data would be stored at the next available empty memory location, and indeed could be stored redundantly at several empty locations. The stored sensory data would neither have key words nor would it be located in known or specified memory locations. Sensory inputs concerning a single object or subject are stored together as vectors in a single "file folder" or "memory folder." When the contents of the folder are retrieved, sights, sounds, tactile feel, smell, etc., are obtained all at the same time. Sensor fusion is a memory phenomenon.  The sensory signals are not fused, but they are simply recorded together in the same folder and retrieved together. Retrieval would be initiated by a prompt signal from a current set of sensory inputs or patterns. A search through the memory would be made to locate stored data that correlates with or relates to the present real-time sensory inputs. The search would be done by a retrieval system that makes use of auto-associative artificial neural networks. Applications of cognitive memory systems have been made to visual aircraft identification, aircraft navigation, and human facial recognition. Other applications to speech recognition and control systems are being explored.

Biographies

Dr. Bernard Widrow:

Bernard Widrow received the S.B., S.M., and Sc.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951, 1953, and 1956, respectively.  He joined the MIT faculty and taught there from 1956 to 1959. In 1959, he joined the faculty of Stanford University, where he is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering.

He began research on adaptive filters, learning processes, and artificial neural models in 1957. Together with M.E. Hoff, Jr., his first doctoral student at Stanford, he invented the LMS algorithm in the autumn of 1959. Today, this is the most widely used learning algorithm, used in every MODEM in the world. He has continued working on adaptive signal processing, adaptive controls, and neural networks since that time.

Dr. Widrow is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of AAAS. He received the IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 1986, the IEEE Signal Processing Society Medal in 1986, the IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Medal in 1991, the IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Engineering from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 2001. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 and into the Silicon Valley  Engineering Council Hall of Fame in 1999.

Dr. Widrow is a past president and currently a member of the Governing Board of the International Neural Network Society. He is associate editor of several journals and is the author of over 100 technical papers and 18 patents. He is co-author of "Adaptive Signal Processing" and "Adaptive Inverse Control," both Prentice-Hall books. A new book,  "Quantization Noise," has been published by Cambridge University Press, June, 2008.

 





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