This project exploits an early concept of a flexible, low-cost, and drone-carried broadband long-distance communication infrastructure and investigates its capability for immediate smart-city application in emergency response. This effort is to support the Smart Emergency Response System (SERS) cluster to participate in the Global City Teams Challenge. This project will have an immediate impact in firefighting and other smart-city emergency response applications by quickly deploying a broadband communication infrastructure, thus improving the efficiency of first responders and saving lives. This communication infrastructure expands the capability of individual drones and enables broad new multi-drone applications for smart cities and has the potential to create new businesses and job markets.
This interdisciplinary project addresses the following technology issues: 1) development of cyber-physical systems (CPS) technology that enables robust long-range drone-to-drone communication infrastructure; 2) practical drone system design and performance evaluation for WiFi provision; and 3) a systematic investigation of its capability to address smart-city emergency response needs, through both analysis and participation in fire-fighting exercises, as a case study. The project team includes an academic institution, technology companies and government planners, each of whom provides complementary expertise and perspectives that are crucial to the success of the project. The project also provides exciting interdisciplinary training opportunities for students and the community to learn CPS technologies and the Global City Teams Challenge efforts.
Abstract
Yan Wan
Yan Wan is a Distinguished University Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). She received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Washington State University and then did Postdoctoral training in the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her research interests lie in the modelling, evaluation, and control of large-scale dynamical networks, cyber-physical systems, stochastic networks, decentralized control, learning control, networking, uncertainty analysis, algebraic graph theory, and their applications to urban aerial mobility, autonomous driving, robot networking, air traffic management, microgrids, and edge computing. She received research grants from NSF, ONR, ARO, NIST, IEEE, Ford Motors, Toyota Motors, Lockheed Martin, Dell Technologies, and MITRE Corporation as subcontracts from the FAA. Her research has led to over 200 publications and successful technology transfer outcomes. For her work, she has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, RTCA William E. Jackson Award, U.S. Ignite and GENI demonstration awards, IEEE WCNC and ICCA Best Paper Awards, UTA Outstanding Research Achievement or Creative Accomplishment Award, UNT Early Career Award for Research and Creativity, UTA STARS Award, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Excellence in Teaching Award, and Tech Titan of the Future – University Level Award. She is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), and Treasurer of the of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. She also serves in the Technical Committees of AIAA Intelligent Systems, IEEE CSS Nonlinear Systems and Control, and IEEE CSS Networks and Communication Systems. She is currently an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, Unmanned Systems, Journal of Advanced Control for Applications, and Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems. She is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a Senior Member of IEEE.
Performance Period: 06/15/2015 - 05/31/2018
Institution: University of Texas Arlington
Award Number: 1522458