Join the AIrTonomy workshop and submit your research use case to become a lead user with 6 months free research infrastructure!
Today’s autonomous aerial vehicles lack the artificial intelligence needed to safely operate in real-world urban air mobility environments. This 2-day workshop will assemble autonomy researchers to discuss and refine use cases and capabilities of a research infrastructure, called AIrTonomy, that would allow them to tackle this challenge using cyber and physical infrastructure components remotely from anywhere in the world.
Featured Speakers
Simon Thompson
CEO, Windracers
Julia Allen
CTO, Saab, Inc.
Day 1 | Setting the Stage: Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) Landscape and Gaps
Time
Event
Location
8:00
Park in Convergence Center Parking lot (bring parking ticket to Burton Morgan for validation)
Convergence Center, 101 Foundry Dr, West Lafayette, Indiana
8:00
Breakfast
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cafe Area, 1201 W State St, West Lafayette, Indiana
8:15 – 8:30
Opening Remarks: Purdue’s Investment into the Future of a Cyber-Physical Infrastructure for Safe and Trustworthy Physical AI and Smart Crossways of America
Speaker: Karen Plaut, Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR), Purdue University
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
8:30 to 9:30
Introduction of AIrTonomy: What’s AIrTonomy, Sabine Brunswicker
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
9:30 to 10:30
How AIrTonomy can help researchers to tackle the 1:100 problem of human-autonomy teaming, Julia Allen, Vice President & Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Saab Inc.
The gaps in the existing research infrastructure for safe and trustworthy AI/ML for truly autonomous aerial vehicles
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
10:30 to 11:00
Break with transition to demonstration site
Transportation provided
11:00 to 13:00
Signal degradation demo
Solving the problem of 1:100 for operating the large fixed-wing UAVs; Demonstration of Research in Progress using AIrTonomy’s PURT and SOC to design AI/ML with the goal to move from 4:1 to 1:10 within 2 years
Demo at Purdue Indoor Motion Capture Lab: One downscaled version of ULTRA delivering paper clips to multiple locations using autonomous taxiing , AI/ML-based dynamic path planning and AI/ML enabled defense against spoofing attacks to safely operate under harsh conditions
Demo at the Smart Operations Center (SOC): Remote operator monitoring the mission leveraging real-time human sensing of cognitive load and situation awareness
VR/AR Demo George
Demo Moderator at PURT: James Goppert
Demo Moderator at SOC: Sabine Brunswicker
PURT, SOC, Smart Operations Center
13:00 to 14:00
Live Lunch with from Lab to Life Experience:
Demonstration of remote operations of the largest fixed-wing UAV available in the USModerator: Joseph Roberts, Purdue Liaison, Windracers Group LLC
Remote Operator: N.N.
SOC, Smart Operations Center, PURT
14:00 to 14:30
Q&A from the audience: What are requirements for realistic indoor testing for successful transition from lab to life? What are the challenges?
Panelists: Philip Pare, Berkay Celik, Inseok Hwang, James Goppert, Joe Roberts
Moderator: N.N.
SOC, Smart Operations Center, PURT
14:30 to 15:15
Break with transition to meeting site
Transportation provided
15:15 to 15:45
Coffee break/dessert with poster session and “poster pitches”
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cafe Area
15:45 to 17:00
R&D USE CASE 1: AI/ML for perception-based navigation in urban canyons’ under conditions of signal degradation – the role of indoor testing, Karthik Dantu, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Drones Lab, University of Buffalo
R&D USE CASE 2: Explainable AI for Aerodynamics/Propulsion modeling – Why PURT is needed, Devesh Upadhay, AI/ML Lead Skapa, SAAB
R&D USE CASE 3: Sim-to-Real for Human-Autonomy-Teaming: What can we learn from research self-driving cars?
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
17:00 to 17:30
Panel discussion:
Panelist: Karthik Dantu, Inseok Hwang, Ziran Wang,
Moderator: Yuehwern Yin
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
17:30 to 18:00
Reception & Networking
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cafe Area
18:00 to 19:30
Conference Dinner with Dinner SpeechSpeaker: Simon Thompson, CEO Windracers Group
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cafe Area
Day 2 | Amplifying the capabilities of AAV research infrastructure to tackle the challenge of using cyber and physical infrastructure components remotely from anywhere in the world
8:00
Park in Convergence Center Parking lot, meet in Convergence Center Lobby
Convergence Center, 101 Foundry Dr, West Lafayette, Indiana
8:05
Transition to Martell Forest
Transportation provided
8:45
Breakfast
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
9:00 to 9:30
Opening Remarks
NSF’s expectations towards future midscale RI-1 infrastructure grants
Speaker: Dr. David Corman, Program Director leading Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC), and CIVIC Innovation Challenge Programs, National Science Foundation
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
9:30 to 10:30
Live Demonstration, Tours, followed by Onsite Presentation
Forestry Drone Lab Demo: Leveraging UAVs for Remote Environmental Sensing and Forestry
Moderator: Songlin Fei, Purdue University
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
10:30 to 10:45
Transition back into room
10:45 to 11:45
Lightning Talks:
R&D USE CASE: AI/ML for successful UAV-enabled firefighting using AIrTonomy’s onboard and ground infrastructures, Songlin Fei, Purdue University
R&D USE CASE: Optimizing edge computing for precision agriculture using AIrTonomy infrastructure , Christopher C. Stewart, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University
R&D USE CASE: Deployment and Use of Private Cellular Networks in Agriculture, Scott A. Shearer, Professor and Chair, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, The Ohio State University
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
11:45 to 12:15
Keynote: The unique capabilities the Purdue Triangle of AIrTonomy from the Perspective of Airspace Integration and Sensor/Communication Infrastructures, Gerald Charlwood, Saab Airborne Systems, Former CTO
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
12:15 to 12:45
Lunch with Poster Session
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
12:45 to 13:15
Collaboration between sites to leverage the benefits of AIrTonomy
Presentation from Ismail Guvenc, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, PI of NSF AERPAW Project, North Carolina State University
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
13:15 to 13:45
Panel discussion on topics: What are critical AI/ML challenges for research on remote sensing and urban airspace integration?
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
14:00 to 14:30
Transition to Purdue, break
Transportation provided
14:00 to 14:30
Access from Anywhere in the world: How the cyber components of AIrTonomy will change how US researchers will perform research on physical AI
Carol Song, Chief Scientist RCAC, Purdue University, and Vipin Chaudhary, Case Western Reserve University
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
14:30 to 14:45
Business Model and Sustainability: Who and how are we paying for the sustainability of the infrastructure?
AIrTonomy’s envisioned freemium model
Purdue Martell Forest, 1007 N 725 W, West Lafayette, Indiana
14:45 to 15:15
Keynote: What it takes to sustain an infrastructure like AIrTonomy, Kyle Snyder
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
15:15 to 16:00
Closing Industry Panel: Advancing Aviation Innovation: What It Takes: Meet the CEO’s from four promising Purdue startups advancing several next generation air mobility innovations to market. Learn what it takes and the importance of collaboration and partnerships.
Matt Bechdol, GRYFN – provider of data and analytics captured by multi-sensor UAV solutions to drive actionable decisions beginning with the agriculture market.
Nick Gunady, Aerovy – energy grid infrastructure management for future of EV air mobility
Duncan Mulgrew, Uniform Sierra Aerospace – autonomous drone technology targeting emergency response use cases
Aaron Pierce, Pierce Aerospace – secure airspace monitoring and surveillance platform
Moderator: David Broecker, Chief Innovation and Collaboration Officer, Purdue Research Foundation
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121
16:00 to 16:30
Announcement of best R&D use case based on community rating (social media) and feedback from online participants; announcement of lead user task force
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cafe Area
16:30 to 17:00
Closing Remarks and Next steps
AIrTonomy Team
Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cafe Area
17:00
End of Event
Hotels Information
Hampton Inn Lafayette
Address: 3941 South Street Lafayette, Indiana 47905 USA | Room Block, rate of $199, block closes on 8/27/2024 | Booking Link | Government Rate
Holiday Inn Laf City Centre
Address: 515 South Street Lafayette, Indiana 47901 | Government Rate
