Warren B. Nelms Institute Newsletter, September 2023

The newsletter will highlight your ongoing activities and accomplishments, not only on the research front but also on education and outreach. We hope to keep you up-to-date on the broad research activities within the Institute, as well as provide opportunities for collaboration. We look forward to connecting with you.

Swarup Bhunia, Director & Semmoto Endowed Professor, ECE
My T. Thai, Associate Director & UF Research Foundation Professor, CISE​

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Undergraduate Research Program Sparks Interest in Secure, Accessible and Sustainable Transportation Through NSF REU Site

This past summer, nine undergraduate students visiting from institutions around the country spent 10 weeks conducting research at the University of Florida (UF) on the topic of Secure, Accessible, and Sustainable Transportation (SAST). Through an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site grant, the undergraduate students worked alongside UF faculty and graduate student researchers at the Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World and the University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI) on highly-relevant and timely topics surrounding transportation. The SAST REU Site is led by Dr. Sandip Ray, Endowed IoT Term Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

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Dr. Yan Wang and Team Receive NSF Grant to Study Small Business Adaptation Through the Lens of Spatial Planning

Dr. Yan Wang, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, has received a $457k award from National Science Foundation (NSF) in support of the project, “Spatial Explanation and Planning for Resilience of Community-Based Small Businesses to Environmental Shocks.” This project aims to gain a better understanding of how spatial factors affect the ability of community-based small businesses (CSB) to adapt to environmental shocks. The research team will leverage new and large datasets to develop a theory-guided framework that incorporates artificial intelligence to assist in spatial planning. The initial focus of the project will be coastal communities in the US Southeast affected by flooding.

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Koppal Uses Bio-Inspired Cameras to Improve UAV Imaging

ECE Florida Associate Professor Sanjeev J. Koppal has received $1M in funding from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in support of his project “Rapid High-Resolution Target Aerial Detection and Tracking through Deep Foveated Imaging.” The project seeks to improve the imaging abilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), allowing them to quickly and efficiently detect the areas of interest in a scene. These abilities are of special interest in situations where UAVs (rather than humans) are being used to perform surveillance and reconnaissance.

Dr. Md Jahidul Islam Leads Project to Improve Underwater Robot Localization and Navigation

A project led by Dr. Md Jahidul Islam titled “Underwater Robot Navigation and Localization During Recovery by Optical Homing and Penning” received $600K in funding by the NSF Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR) program. Along with collaborators Dr. Sanjeev Koppal (ECE) and Dr. Jane Shin (MAE), this project will solve the foundational problem of underwater robot localization by introducing a new optics-based sensing and localization framework.

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Mobile Vehicle Charging Research Published in IEEE Internet of Things Magazine

Battery-related concerns are one of the major hurdles to the wide adoption of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). A newly published paper by Warren B. Nelms Institute researchers aims to address these concerns with SAVIOR, an innovative Internet-of-Things (IoT) framework for replenishing BEV batteries on-the-go with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and mobile charging stations (MoCS). The paper titled, “SAVIOR: A Sustainable Network of Vehicles with Near-Perpetual Mobility” was published in IEEE Internet of Things Magazine in June 2023. This paper is authored by Prabuddha Chakraborty, Assistant Professor at the University of Maine; Reiner N. Dizon-Paradis, Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida; and Swarup Bhunia, Professor and Director of the Warren B. Nelms Institute at the University of Florida.

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IoT Design Competition 2023: Register Now!

Registration will be closing soon for the 3rd annual IoT Design Competition hosted by the IoT Students Club at the University of Florida. Texas Instruments, Microsoft, and the Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World are proud sponsors of this competition. In this competition, teams of 1-4 members will create their own IoT Project. This competition promotes the participation of undergraduate and graduate students in the application of IoT technology to solve real-life problems. The goal of the competition is to enhance understanding of IoT technology and applications and create awareness about the emerging field of IoT.

Eligibility: Current undergraduate and graduate students worldwide

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Student Team Places 3rd in HACK@DAC Competition

Team Bitwise Bandits, comprised of students from the University of Florida (UF) and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur), has won 3rd Place in the 6th HACK@DAC Hardware Security Capture-the-Flag (CTF) Competition. The members of the team are: Sudipta Paria and Aritra Dasgupta (UF), and Rajat Sadhukhan and Arnab Bag (IIT Kharagpur). The team is advised by Dr. Swarup Bhunia, Professor at the University of Florida and Director of the Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World.

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