Directions in Engineering Research An Assessment of Opportunities and Needs (1987) / Chapter Skim
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5. Information, Communication, Computation, and Control Systems Research in the United States: An Overview
5. Information, Communication, Computation, and Control Systems Research in the United States: An Overview
Pages 182-215
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From page 182... ...
Entire industries, such as banking, insurance, and law, have become dependent on computer data bases. Airline ticketing offices and the stock exchanges can handle an enormous volume of transactions with the use of modern information processing technology.
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From page 183... ...
Although there has been a rapid increase in the complexity and performance of hardware over roughly the past two decades, our ability to design and produce software has improved less rapidly. Greater productivity in software development needs to be emphasized in our national engineering research priorities, along with strong support for continued increases in hardware performance.
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From page 184... ...
Increasingly sophisticated architectures and operating systems are necessary to make such computer systems operate effectively. We recommend that increasing the power of complex systems and the productivity of software development for them be set as national engineering priorities.
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From page 185... ...
For example, bipolar integrated circuits are the foundation of most high-speed, large-scale computers; however, metal oxide semiconductor-type integrated circuits predominate in university research and teaching. Matching that portion of university research that is directed toward future national needs with a more clearly defined perception of what those needs are likely to be is a continuing challenge.
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From page 186... ...
Particular attention is paid to the working environment for university faculty in lC3 and to the adequacy, both quantitative and qualitative, of graduating engineers who form the talent pool for research. Research Needs The Most Import ant Areas of ~formation, Communications, Computation, and Control Systems Research In view of the critical importance of research advances in this field to our national competitiveness and security, this section of the report is the primary focus of the panel's work.
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From page 187... ...
(Both reports are in this volume.) COMPUTER DEVICES Several categories of devices underlie progress in computation; these are integrated circuits, interconnection structures (so-called ~packaging")
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From page 188... ...
However, none of the very large-scale, general-purpose computers, and few engineering-scientific supercomputers, rely on metal oxide semiconductor VESI for their critical circuitry. Instead, the hundreds of thousands of logic circuits in these economically and scientifically important computers are almost exclusively bipolar silicon logic circuits.
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From page 189... ...
For magnetic storage, both vertical recording and signal encoding techniques offer significant improvements over the current state of the art. Vertical recording offers a means for packing magnetic transitions more densely; signal encoding techniques offer a way of using those transitions to store information more efficiently.
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From page 190... ...
retrieval of store] information is not possible for some optical storage devices, and for others it is far slower and more costly today than for magnetic storage systems.
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From page 191... ...
compound semiconductors. Important and novel structures include superIattices and quantum wells, in which a strong interaction between optical and electrical signals can be obtained.
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From page 192... ...
Indeed, many of the most difficult problems today in the IC3 field are in designing special computer architectures, in producing enormously large and complex software programs, and in evolving efficient computational algorithms for problems of overwhelming size.
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From page 193... ...
Communications networks currently permit computers in different places of the same or different architectures and software environments to "talks to each other at a relatively low level. What is needed is a way of linking such computers and their associated data bases with each other and with large, central data bases so that a wide array of services is performed in a manner that is both efficient and transparent to the user.
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From page 194... ...
Similarly, there are great advantages to specialized parallel architectures for processing visual inputs. The complex memory structures used in artificial intelligence lend themselves to computer organizations containing a million or more nodes that interact in parallel.
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From page 195... ...
MAN-MACHINE INTERACTIONS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The interface between the analog and digital worlds is seen most distinctly in man-machine interactions. This interface is often not very "friendly," and it is here that some of the most notable bottlenecks exist in our attempt to bring computing power into our everyday lives for practical uses.
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From page 196... ...
of multiple robots, and automation in manufacturing require complex decision making and real-time control involving enormous communications and computations. Integrated research in computer vision, artificial intelligence, decision and control theory,
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From page 197... ...
It is not always possible or desirable to centralize information gathering and the real-time computation of decision variables. One of the most critical needs in control systems research is the investigation of decentralized control strategies in which local decision variables are determined on the basis of local sensor signal.
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From page 198... ...
ISSUES THE NSF'S ROLE IN SUPPORT OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN IC3 SYSTEMS ENGINEERING IC3 system technologies have made phenomenal progress over the last two decades. Much of this advance has been based on outstanding research performed in industrial laboratories, where the necessary state-of-the-art experimental facilities and computational capabilities are available.
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From page 199... ...
The structure of American universities permits the interaction of electronic and information engineering research with its scientific and mathematical base. Therefore, it is important to continue to enhance academic research in these forefront engineering fields and to encourage interdisciplinary research programs that combine the appropriate science and engineering disciplines.
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From page 200... ...
The DOD's budget for R&D Is divided into five accounts, two of which support fundamental engineering research. Basic and applied research, the 6.1 account in DOD parlance, sustains the science and technology base, whereas 6.2, the exploratory development account, also contains some elements of fairly fundamental research such as the architecture of a new generation of superspeed computers.
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From page 201... ...
This recognition by the DOD that the vitality and magnitude of fundamental engineering research and education are essential to the national welfare and defense is welcome. The DOD initiatives will sustain the needed growth of university research; they are indicative of a renewal of emphasis, on the part of DOD, on the long-term health of university research rather than on short-term defense requirements.
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THE FEDERAL ROLE IN ENCOURAGING RESEARCH IN INDUSTRY Although universities have the intellectual resources, the environment, and the incentives to lead in fundamental research, a great many of the engineering research breakthroughs in lC3 have actually occurred in industrial laboratories. It is essential for the health of innovation in electronics and computers that government policies encourage research in the industrial sector.
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From page 203... ...
Recommendation Fundamental research performed by industry is an essential ingredient in the progress of electronics and computer ROD. The federal government should continue to encourage industrial research through direct contractual support, through DOD IRA D programs, by means of tax incentives, and by encouraging research consortia to be organized where appropriate.
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From page 204... ...
The Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, MCC in Texas, and the Center for Industrial Innovation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York are further examples of state, university, and industry cooperation to foster the establishment of technology centers of excellence. All of these cooperative initiatives have the same underlying objectives (Office of Technology Assessment, 1985~: ~ improved research and new knowledge- mutual benefits are derived from the sharing of knowledge, funds, equipment, personnel, and technology; Or ~ education and manpower greater research activity and better facilities result in a strengthened academic program generally, as well as beneficial contacts with industry from the point of view of students and faculty; and .
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From page 205... ...
In particular, we comment on the continuing need to retain foreign Ph.D.s both in industry and academia. FACULTY For a variety of reasons, the working environment for university faculty in virtually every engineering discipline has declined sharply in recent years.
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From page 206... ...
Partly because electrical engineering and computer science departments have been unable to fill empty faculty slots, and partly to ensure a reasonable balance in enrollments within the engineering school, many universities have had to limit enrollments in those departments (to about one-third of total engineering enrollment in most cases)
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From page 207... ...
graduates of jobs in these fast-moving fields in industry. Recommendations University administrators should continue granting competitive salaries to faculties in electrical engineering and computer science departments.
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From page 208... ...
Engineering schools should be encouraged to create programs for development of educational technology by faculty, with shared institutional, industry, and government funding. EQu~PMENT AND FACILITIES Much attention has recently been paid by industry and government to the problem of obsolete research and teaching equipment in colleges and schools of engineering (especially in undergraduate labs)
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From page 209... ...
Yet the requirement for cross-disciplinary approaches to research and teaching runs counter to the established structures and practices of most university engineering departments, which have long emphasized specialization. By the same token, cros~disciplinary research is not easily encompassed within the traditional academic department structure or the reward system for university faculty.
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From page 210... ...
Recommendation Universities must evaluate both their organizational and reward structures to permit the cross-disciplinary approach to Nourish, in research as well as in teaching. In addition, university administrators must improve the salary structure for interdepartmental laboratory research staff and devise other mechanisms for integrating them into university affairs and otherwise improving their overall morale.
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From page 211... ...
The quality of these doctorates is high; but their number is clearly insufficient- especially in ~hot" areas such as artificial intelligence, CAD, robotics, VEST, computer architecture, graphics, and computer systems. The need for doctorates in these fields will not abate in the next decade.
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From page 212... ...
notes that, among Ph.D. students currently studying at American universities, the proportion of foreign-born students on temporary visas to American-born students has risen sharply in recent years, to more than 40 percent (National Research Council, 1985~.
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From page 213... ...
An IEEE Opinion on Research Needs in Information and Computing Technology. Report of an IEEE Task Force to the Engineering Research Board Panel on Information, Communication, Computation, and Control Systems Research, February 1985.
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Because that is not practical, we hope nevertheless that this small acknowledgment might convey our gratitude. Responses on aspects of IC3 systems research were received from individuals representing 53 different organizations, listed in Table A-1: 29 universities (including 11 represented by recipients of NSF Presidential Young Investigator Awards)
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From page 215... ...
AGENCIES AND LABORATORIES Air Force Institute of Technology Air Force Office of Scientific Research Argonne National Laboratory Army Research Office Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory NASA Ames Research Center NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Lewis Research Center NASA Langley Research Center National Center for Atmospheric Research Nava! Research Laboratory Office of Naval Research Oak Ridge National Laboratory Sandia National Laboratory .
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