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The Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois
currently resides in a new, state-of-the-art building, the Siebel
Center for Computer Science. This new building encompasses more than
270,000 square feet of testing facilities, laboratories and classrooms
incorporating "intelligent'' technology that anticipates and responds
to student and staff activities. The Center will serve as a
laboratory for exploring and evaluating 21st century computing
environments, where everyday devices have embedded intelligence and
are able to adapt to context and use, sharing information and user
preferences by means of ubiquitous communication networks. The
information technology infrastructure has been ``designed in'' from
the beginning, with embedded computers in doors, offices and
laboratories, ubiquitous wearable devices, streaming multimedia and
tracking, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and
stereolithographic fabrication, all connected by wireless and
high-speed wired networks for distributed collaboration and
adaptation.
View Larger Graphic of Facility Network
We have built a lab testbed that consists of a wireless LAN and
several wireline LANs (Figure 1). Two 11 Mbps access points (with
128-bit encryption and fixed antennas), along with 12
PCI-card-equipped laptops, desktops, and hand held devices (e.g.,
aironet-powered Compaq iPaq pocket PC), comprise the wireless LAN.
The wireline LANs are composed of 15 desktops interconnected with
Cisco 3600 series routers with firewall security. The testbed will be
connected (via PIX firewalls) to the Internet as well as to the
Intel-donated, Instructional Linux Lab. The latter allows us to
conducts experiments on a testbed of over 60 hosts when the school is
not in session. Such an inexpensive experimental testbed captures all
the fundamental features of a large and complicated network and can
serve as a platform for validating and evaluating all the algorithms,
protocols, and systems prototypes developed. When the proposed
technology is sufficiently mature, we will carry out experiments at
the computer facilities at Space and Terrestrial Communications
Directorate.
In addition, the PIs and their graduate students are currently
affiliated with, and have access to, the following research
laboratories:
This laboratory consists of a
network of MOTES — microcomputers with embedded sensors and antenna.
In addition, there are mobile MOTES mounted on top of and interfaced
with mobile robots PPRK. This set up allows us to experiment with
various real time communication and sensing applications that utilizes
both fixed and mobile sensors.
For dedicated or real-time computing
applications, students can use design stations in the Embedded Systems
Laboratory. These design stations feature HP and PC computers and
microcontroller programming tools, and computer controlled devices
such as inverted pendulums and water-seesaws. Hardware prototyping is
done using Tektronix and HP instrumentation, and PCs outfitted with
A/D and D/A capability support real-world interfacing projects. The
Telelab facility allows users to perform control experiments across
the web and watch the results via WebCam streaming video
(http://pertsserver.cs.uiuc.edu/drii/).
Through collaboration with Dr. P. R. Kumar
on another project, the PI and her students have been granted access
to Dr. Kumar's IT convergence laboratory. This lab features abut 30
laptops with wireless PCMCIA cards. This facility is used for the
design, development, and testing of protocols for ad hoc wireless
networks. The laptop also features a testbed for a project to study
the oncoming convergence of communications, computing, sensing and
actuation. It consists of several model cars controlled wirelessly,
each connected to a laptop, as well as a vision system providing
sensing.
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