Thursday, April 21st, 2016

Time	Event
12:00a	Robotic consensus Planning algorithms for teams of robots fall into two categories: centralized algorithms, in which a single computer makes decisions for the whole team, and decentralized algorithms, in which each robot makes its own decisions based on local observations. With centralized algorithms, if the central computer goes offline, the whole system falls apart. Decentralized algorithms handle erratic communication better, but they’re harder to design, because each robot is essentially guessing what the others will do. Most research on decentralized algorithms has focused on making collective decision-making more reliable and has deferred the problem of avoiding obstacles in the robots’ environment. At the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in May, MIT researchers will present a new, decentralized planning algorithm for teams of robots that factors in not only stationary obstacles, but moving obstacles, as well. The algorithm also requires significantly less communications bandwidth than existing decentralized algorithms, but preserves strong mathematical guarantees that the robots will avoid collisions. In simulations involving squadrons of minihelicopters, the decentralized algorithm came up with the same flight plans that a centralized version did. The drones generally preserved an approximation of their preferred formation, a square at a fixed altitude — although to accommodate obstacles the square rotated and the distances between drones contracted. Occasionally, however, the drones would fly single file or assume a formation in which pairs of them flew at different altitudes. “It’s a really exciting result because it combines so many challenging goals,” says Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, whose group developed the new algorithm. “Your group of robots has a local goal, which is to stay in formation, and a global goal, which is where they want to go or the trajectory along which you want them to move. And you allow them to operate in a world with static obstacles but also unexpected dynamic obstacles, and you have a guarantee that they are going to retain their local and global objectives. They will have to make some deviations, but those deviations are minimal.” Rus is joined on the paper by first author Javier Alonso-Mora, a postdoc in Rus’ group; Mac Schwager, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University who worked with Rus as an MIT PhD student in mechanical engineering; and Eduardo Montijano, a professor at Centro Universitario de la Defensa in Zaragoza, Spain. Trading regions In a typical decentralized group planning algorithm, each robot might broadcast its observations of the environment to its teammates, and all the robots would then execute the same planning algorithm, presumably on the basis of the same information. But Rus, Alonso-Mora, and their colleagues found a way to reduce both the computational and communication burdens imposed by consensual planning. The essential idea is that each robot, on the basis of its own observations, maps out an obstacle-free region in its immediate environment and passes that map only to its nearest neighbors. When a robot receives a map from a neighbor, it calculates the intersection of that map with its own and passes that on. This keeps down both the size of the robots’ communications — describing the intersection of 100 maps requires no more data than describing the intersection of two — and their number, because each robot communicates only with its neighbors. Nonetheless, each robot ends up with a map that reflects all of the obstacles detected by all the team members. Four dimensions The maps have not three dimensions, however, but four — the fourth being time. This is how the algorithm accounts for moving obstacles. The four-dimensional map describes how a three-dimensional map would have to change to accommodate the obstacle’s change of location, over a span of a few seconds. But it does so in a mathematically compact manner. The algorithm does assume that moving obstacles have constant velocity, which will not always be the case in the real world. But each robot updates its map several times a second, a short enough span of time that the velocity of an accelerating object is unlikely to change dramatically. On the basis of its latest map, each robot calculates the trajectory that will maximize both its local goal — staying in formation — and its global goal. The researchers are also testing a version of their algorithm on wheeled robots whose goal is to collectively carry an object across a room where human beings are also moving around, as a simulation of an environment in which humans and robots work together. (Comment on this)
12:00p	Together in Service Day strengthens MIT-Cambridge ties With its inaugural Together in Service Day — which included volunteer-based events around the campus, region, and world — MIT managed on Tuesday to rally its entire community around a good cause, while strengthening ties with its host city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Throughout the day, more than 500 MIT faculty, student, staff, and alumni volunteered for 32 shifts at 27 nonprofits across Cambridge and Boston, through the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center’s CityDays program. More than 200 additional alumni volunteered at 22 nonprofits in 11 other states and four countries. And, on campus, teams of MIT affiliates and others joined in a civic-engagement hackathon to invent innovative solutions to major infrastructure issues facing Cambridge. In light of the day’s success, during a closing reception held at the Samberg Conference Center, Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz announced three new Institute initiatives that aim, he said, “to further strengthen the ties between MIT and its host community.” One initiative is to make the Together in Service Day an annual event; it was originally planned as a one-time program to celebrate the centennial of MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge in 1916. MIT has planned a series of public centennial events this spring, which will culminate in a parade across the river by water and bridge, and includes a rare open house at which tens of thousands of visitors are expected to explore the campus. In another initiative, MIT will hire a K-12 outreach coordinator to help the Institute’s more than 120 educational outreach programs better connect with the needs of the Cambridge community. And the Institute will launch an “MIT Achievement Scholarship” program to award grants to college-bound seniors in Cambridge, regardless of what college they attend. “It is my sincere hope that they will have a positive and lasting impact in the Cambridge community,” Ruiz said. Several Cambridge city officials were on hand during the closing ceremony, including City Manager Richard Rossi and Mayor E. Denise Simmons. Simmons praised the day of service for boosting community engagement and the new education initiatives for supporting the city’s youth. “Since leaving the other city across the river, Boston, and laying down roots in Cambridge one century ago, MIT has really become an integral part of the Cambridge community, and we are truly grateful for all the partnerships,” Simmons said. Also as part of the Together in Service Day, thousands of collection-drive items donated by 40 MIT departments — including books, school supplies, toiletries, canned goods, and sports equipment for youth — were delivered to 23 nonprofit organizations in the region. Hacking civic service At the Samberg Conference Center, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) hosted what GSC President Michael McClellan called a “uniquely MIT” community service event: a hackathon-style event dubbed the “Serve-a-thon.” Starting in August, the GSC and Cambridge city officials worked together to identify the major challenges in Cambridge, based on previous reports and on a participatory budgeting process in which citizens propose ideas that are voted on and funded through the city budget. “These are real, pressing issues for the city that students can address in six or eight hours of experimentation,” McClellan said. For the hackathon, the GSC narrowed down ideas to four topics: tree-friendly sidewalks, blue-sky street redesigns (without budgetary, logistical, or other restrictions), parking solutions, and bus shelter redesigns. Over the course of the day, six teams of students, staff, and others tackled these problems. The teams showcased their ideas on poster boards during the closing ceremony. Ideas included: an app to locate parking spaces around Cambridge, bus shelters with solar panels to power heat lamps and LED screens, and motorized minipods suspended from a monorail above sidewalks that can be used for public transit. The teams plan to explore potential grant funding through the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center to further pursue their ideas with city departments. Taha Jennings, Cambridge’s assistant to the city manager, who helped coordinate the hackathon, said Cambridge could consider some of the projects. He also praised the hackathon for offering an “outside-the-box” solution to city issues. “It’s a fresh look at a challenge that maybe the city has been struggling with,” Jennings said. “Just having that conversation and generating more ideas ... could be really helpful.” Outside the “MIT bubble” For CityDays, the one-day volunteer program run by the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center several times a year, volunteers cleaned, painted, landscaped, prepared meals, taught, and worked various other odd jobs at nonprofits around the region. Alumni participants across the globe taught science to kids, organized robotics events, helped in animal shelters, and provided support to individuals facing life-threatening illnesses, among other activities. Speaking at the day’s morning launch ceremony, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart told the audience of volunteers gathered in North Court that “our food banks, early education centers, and conservation and housing nonprofits, and so many others, are going to benefit tremendously from MIT’s minds, hands, and hearts.” For organizations like the Community Art Center, which has a longstanding relationship with MIT, such community service events are vital. “We rely on volunteers here,” said Laura Chadwell, the center’s community programs director. “It helps us do deep cleaning that we don’t get the chance to get to, because there’s no dedicated cleaning staff.” About 20 MIT staff spent two hours at that center on Tuesday, scrubbing the gym floor, painting walls in a hallway, and washing windows. But participants found they also benefited from the community service, saying it helped them give back to the community and escape from the “MIT bubble” — referring to a concept that students too focused on coursework sometimes ignore issues in their own neighborhood or around the world. Speaking at the launch ceremony, sophomore Lily Dove said volunteering for MIT’s ReachOut program, which matches MIT students with school children in afterschool programs, has helped her break free of the MIT bubble. “It’s always important to remember to give back to the city which is our host,” said Dove, who majors in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences. “I think every student of life has that desire to learn everything they can about the world, and service in the community is a great way to do that.” Mechanical engineering sophomore Caralyn Cutlip, who volunteered with fellow Next House undergraduates at CASPAR, an emergency service shelter for homeless individuals grappling with addiction, agreed with Dove’s sentiments. Among other things, Cutlip said the event showed her a volunteer opportunity “right in our own backyard” that she’ll pursue in the future. “I had no idea this place was here,” Cutlip said. “Since we’re so isolated on campus, it’s easy to not think about the world, and not think of the people right next to us that need help. I think it’s important to integrate ourselves into that community.” (Comment on this)
1:00p	Seven from MIT elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences Six MIT faculty members and the chair of the MIT Corporation are among 213 leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced this week. One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications, as well as studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education. Those elected from MIT this year are: Andrea Louise Campbell, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and head of the Department of Political Science; Victor Chernozhukov, professor of economics; Pavel Etingof, professor of mathematics; John Gabrieli, the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology; Jacqueline Hewitt, professor of physics and director of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research; Vann McGee, professor of philosophy; and Robert Brian Millard ’73, chair of the MIT Corporation. “It is an honor to welcome this new class of exceptional women and men as part of our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, Chair of the Academy’s Board of Directors. “Their election affords us an invaluable opportunity to bring their expertise and knowledge to bear on some of the most significant challenges of our day. We look forward to engaging these new members in the work of the Academy.” The new class will be inducted at a ceremony held on Oct. 8 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th century, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th century. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. (Comment on this)
4:00p	Robert Birgeneau to receive Vannevar Bush award Robert Birgeneau, professor emeritus in MIT’s Department of Physics and former dean of science, has been named as the recipient of the National Science Board’s 2016 Vannevar Bush Award. Birgeneau, who is also chancellor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, is being recognized for his “exceptional public service and scientific leadership, including lifelong, high caliber research committed to the public good and tireless advocacy for the nation’s research universities together with unrelenting efforts to advance equity and inclusion in higher education and science,” according to a press release from the National Science Board, which is the policy-making body for the National Science Foundation. A graduate of the University of Toronto and Yale University, Birgeneau joined the physics faculty at MIT in 1975 and was named the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics in 1982. He served as the dean of science from 1991 to 2000 and has been professor emeritus of physics since 2003. In 2000, Birgeneau became president of the University of Toronto, and in 2004 he became chancellor at UC Berkeley, where he was known for his promotion of diversity and equity while advancing academic excellence. Under his leadership, Berkeley became the first university in the nation to offer comprehensive financial aid to undocumented students and the first public university to provide significant financial aid to middle class students. Birgeneau's research has investigated the phases and phase transition behavior of novel states of matter. He and his collaborators pioneered the use of X-ray synchrotron radiation for high-resolution studies of condensed matter. For the past decade, they have carried out a comprehensive research program aimed at elucidating the microscopic properties of the high-temperature superconducting materials. “I have always felt a particular kinship with Dr. Bush because much of my research was carried out in the Vannevar Bush building at MIT,” Birgeneau told the National Science Board. “It is especially gratifying to me to be honored for simply always trying to act responsibly and do the right thing. In particular, I have worked hard to ensure that every person, regardless of his or her gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or immigration status, can be a full participant in our great science and technology enterprise. It is only by drawing on the entire talent pool that the U.S. will continue to excel.” The National Science Board initiated its Vannevar Bush Award in 1980 in memory of Vannevar Bush, who helped establish federal funding for science and engineering as a national priority and played a pivotal role in the creation of the National Science Foundation. The board will present Birgeneau with the award on May 5. (Comment on this)

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