The following Great Innovative Idea is from Jun Zhang and Michael Yip. Their paper called Three-Dimensional Hysteresis Modeling of Robotic Artificial Muscles with Application to Shape Memory Alloy Actuators was one of the featured talks at the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) sponsored Material Robotics (MaRo) Workshop at the 2017 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) Conference. The Idea Robotic artificial muscles are actuators that can make robots move. Unlike electric motors, robotic artificial muscles are compliant and can generate straight contractions just like our biological muscles. Recently, they are increasingly popular in many exciting areas, such as biomimetic robots, soft robots, and safe human-robot interaction. To practically use robotic artificial muscles, it is crucial to have an accurate model […]

The following blog was written by CCC Vice Chair Mark D. Hill, with contributions from Sarita Adve and Alvin Lebeck.  As readers of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) blog know, CCC seeks to promote information technology research by exposing and developing synergies among researchers, research beneficiaries, and research funders. CCC does this through visioning activities, white papers, a blog, etc. CCC is pleased to see some of its efforts amplified by specific research communities, e.g., artificial intelligence. Here I highlight my own computer architecture community to encourage you to emulate this amplification in your community. Over the years, CCC has conducted a number of visioning activities related to computer architecture including 2012’s 21st Century Computer Architecture, 2016’s Arch2030: A Vision of Computer Architecture […]

Agriculture provides approximately 1 in 10 U.S. jobs and supports food and nutrition security as well as energy independence. However, U.S. global competitiveness is at risk because of accelerated investments by many other countries in agriculture, food, energy, and resource management. A renewed private-public effort is needed to build next-generation farm-infrastructures to stay competitive, protect and grow workforce, as well as manage risks of market and environmental shocks jeopardizing food, energy, and water security. So how do we start? Recently, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) in collaboration with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) released white papers describing a collective research agenda for intelligent infrastructure. We will be blogging about each paper over the […]

The following is a Science Editorial from former CCC Council member and AI and Robotics Task Force Co-Chair Eric Horvitz, Head of  Microsoft Research Labs. He is also a past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and cofounded the One Hundred Year Study on AI at Stanford. In an essay about his science fiction, Isaac Asimov reflected that “it became very common…to picture robots as dangerous devices that invariably destroyed their creators.” He rejected this view and formulated the “laws of robotics,” aimed at ensuring the safety and benevolence of robotic systems. Asimov’s stories about the relationship between people and robots were only a few years old […]

The Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 2-7, 2018. The purpose of the AAAI conference series is to promote research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and foster scientific exchange between researchers, practitioners, scientists, students, and engineers in AI and its affiliated disciplines. AAAI-18 will continue the tradition of previous AAAI conferences with technical paper presentations, invited speakers, workshops, tutorials, poster sessions, senior member presentations, competitions, and exhibit programs, all selected according to the highest standards. AAAI-18 will also include additional programs for students and young researchers. Important Dates for the AAAI-18 Conference July 1 – September 8, 2017: Authors register on the AAAI web […]

Saturday, July 1st, was the start of a new term at CCC! The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair Elizabeth Mynatt and Vice Chair Mark Hill are continuing in their respective roles for another year. The other members of the ’17-’18 CCC Executive Committee include Daniel P. Lopresti, Lehigh University, Jennifer Rexford, Princeton University, and Ben Zorn, Microsoft Research. In addition to a new Exec Committee, six new CCC Council members have joined us for the start of their three-year terms, Nadya Bliss, Arizona State University, Elizabeth Churchill, Google, Juliana Freire, New York University, Keith Marzullo, University of Maryland, Greg Morrisett, Cornell University, and Manuela Veloso, Carnegie Mellon University. The CCC and CRA thank those Council members whose terms ended on June 30th for their exceptional dedication and service to the CCC and to the broader computing research […]