About the Intelligent Systems Research Centre

The Intelligent Systems Research Centre is a major research unit within the Faculty of Computing and Engineering, on the Magee campus of the University of Ulster, N. Ireland. The Centre has developed from the original Intelligent Systems Research Laboratory (ISEL) which was founded in 1997 and has expanded rapidly since that date. Currently the Centre is composed of approximately 50 researchers with plans to expand to 100 researchers within seven years.

Intelligent Systems

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of an exciting new research discipline, which can be described by the umbrella term intelligent systems. An alternative term is computational intelligence. The emphasis in such research is to develop systems that attempt to mimic, albeit crudely at present, the intelligent characteristics of biological species.

Research into such systems seeks to explore what we can learn from an improved understanding of the biological brain and to use this knowledge to replicate those aspects of natural systems which we would like to see in computational artifacts, for example:

• Computer systems that exhibit autonomous reasoning
• Computer systems that can learn from experience
• Computer systems that can self-organise to meet the needs of the current environment and problem
• Computer systems that can adapt and evolve as required
• Computer systems that can communicate with humans in an efficient and natural manner

In the next 10 years, we expect to see the rapid emergence of true intelligent computational systems. Such systems will not be confined to desktop machines but will pervade everyday activities. They will be seen in consumer applications, industry, healthcare and entertainment. The European Union has recognised the potential for such developments and has recently funded research initiatives such as “Life-like Perception ”, “Beyond Robotics ” and “Complex Systems” , and currently in FP7 “Cognitive Robotics ”. The potential arises by the integration of recent developments in brain science, new developments in intelligent computational algorithms, bio-inspired intelligent systems algorithms, development in neuroscience research and improved capabilities in knowledge engineering.

Targeted Research

The ISRC addresses the topic of intelligent systems in a number of critical areas. The activities of the Centre encompass research into a range of intelligent and hybrid technologies, and include work on neural networks, fuzzy systems, genetic / evolutionary algorithms, hybrid intelligent systems, reasoning, intelligent systems in robotics, wireless sensor networks, robot vision, emulation of sensory aspects of the biological brain in hardware and software, and brain computer interfacing. There is a strong emphasis in the Centre on embedded systems, and in particular the incorporation of greater intelligence into mobile or wireless-enabled embedded systems. The research is being applied to topics as diverse as intelligent embedded systems, bio-inspired systems, evolvable hardware, self-organising and self-adapting computational systems and self-repair of complex embedded systems. The Centre is housed in state of the art research laboratories with an excellent range of experimental equipment.

Track Record

ISRC has received substantial funding from a range of sources, local, national and international. Currently the Centre has staff working on projects with total budget in excess of UK£22 million The Centre has attracted over £13 million pounds of external research income during the last five years from both national and international sources, Government and industry.

Local industry has funded work on an intelligent toolkit for the repair of microprocessor systems (£57k). In October 2000 the Centre was awarded £314k from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for research into the remote access to experimental embedded systems laboratories (the DIESEL project £345k). The Centre has been active on projects funded by the European Union’s various Framework programmes: PROMINENT (approx 0.5MEuro) and STEPCAM - (1.6MEuro). The Centre was also successful in attracting funds under the European Union’s IST Framework 5 research programme, in two projects (QUDOS (1M Euro) and SenseMaker (1.6M Euro). ISRC was the coordinating partner for the multi-disciplinary SenseMaker project, which included partners at CNRS in France, University of Heidelberg, IXL Bordeaux, and Trinity College Dublin; as well as providing management and coordination of the project, ISRC provided electronic engineering and computational intelligence expertise – this required the design and implementation of the electronic intelligent system to mimic aspects of the brain on reconfigurable hardware. The QUDOS partners included the Cavendish Laboratories of Cambridge University, the Max Planck Institute, the University of Braunschwieg and the University of Duisburg in Germany.

In July 03 the Centre successfully was successful in winning support for the InterWave project, funded under the North-South Collaborative Research programme, in an intensely competitive funding process (0.3MEuro). In 2003 ISRC’s work was recognised as of major strategic importance to the University when it received an invitation to submit a proposal under the Science Research Infrastructure Programme (SRIF). ISRC’s proposal, of value £1.45M, was successful and has permitted major investment in equipment and infrastructure. Work on this project commenced in April ’04 and permitted the creation of state of the art research facilities in the Centre. In September ‘04 the Centre began work on a follow up to the DIESEL project, funded by InvestNI under its Proof of Concept programme (£145,000). The Centre has recently completed the DETI Digital Derry Broadband Flagship Project (£1.6Million), which brought the concept of a wireless campus to the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, and provided each new engineering students with a personal wireless enabled tablet PC for use in their studies. The project brought major changes to the conventional delivery mode of engineering and computing courses by enabling much greater interactivity in lectures and laboratories. In addition the project introduced the advantages and opportunities of wireless technology to local businesses through the Wireless Technology Demonstration Centre within the ISRC.

Following on from the DETI project, work has now progressed to research in the area of wireless sensory systems and wireless network infrastructures, as the ISRC develops its interest in intelligent, communicating sensory–enabled systems. ISRC secured £520K funding from DEL under the Science, Research and Infrastructure (SRIF 3) programme to support the research, development and implementation of emerging wireless applications and services in industry, commerce and leisure and has strengthened its team by the appointment of a new Reader in Wireless Technologies. Current ISRC research in the area of wireless technology focuses on the effective delivery of external (outdoors) and internal (indoors) location dependent services using GPS, sensory networks, RFID, Bluetooth and WiFi technologies. For example, a University Tour Guide application has been implemented on a PDA that uses GPS positioning technology to provide historical information to users based on their current location on the Magee campus. Several alternative strategies have been investigated to support the provision of internal Location-Based applications including the integration of RFID technology with ZigBee Wireless Sensor Network. Additional work on the problem investigated Bluetooth-enabled device tracking to determine location and WiFi fingerprinting using extensions to Intel Research’s Place Lab software. Ongoing research has also focused on creating healthcare applications that utilise biological sensors and wireless sensor networks to monitor patients’ vital signs, levels of mobility and location. In particular, the application of intelligent techniques to analyse such patient data and automatically detect irregularities to assist remotely located medical staff is currently under investigation, however, there are a vast range of issues to be considered. For example such issues include the way in which a plethora of sensory data, available to both humans and intelligent computational systems, may be usefully exploited; how humans will interact with intelligent user-aware environments using mobile context-aware devices which are guided by information extracted from ubiquitous sensory information; and how best to create intelligent machines in the context of differing available sensory modalities. Future research at the ISRC will attempt to address such issues and investigate the creation of ‘smart’ leisure and healthcare applications through the fusion of wireless sensory technologies and intelligent systems engineering.

The EpiCentre (3.5M Euro) project (http://www.epicentreireland.com/) within ISRC is a Technology and Innovation Centre for the North West of Ireland cross border region, where practical industrial problems can be solved in partnership between local companies and the three further/higher education institutions in the region. The primary role of the EpiCentre is to assist the development and deployment of technology within the existing industrial base within the region. This industrial base addresses those sectors which inherently use technology; ranging from the mass production of low cost products (e.g. the textile sector) to the development of low volume high cost products such as in the software tools development domain. The EpiCentre has invested heavily in specialised technical equipment at each of our three sites. Access to this equipment brings real value to clients by allowing us to adopt a very hands-on and practical approach to our projects. It also acts as a networking centre to facilitate knowledge sharing and network building. To date the EpiCentre has assisted over 70 local companies in technology development.

Additional work in the Centre relates to robot vision and brain computer interfacing, with particular projects related to rehabilitation aspects of in the Centre relates to the possibilities it offers in terms of computational neuroscience and brain computer interfacing – with a range of projects integrating brain imaging and intelligent systems, sensory integration, multimodal sensory responses in the presence of damaged / limited sensory modalities etc, so as to explore and understand better how we can ultimately create computationally intelligent machines and intelligent prosthetics. The EPSRC funded Direct Range Image Processing project is generating classes of feature extraction algorithms for use on irregular grids, with applications in vision systems for robotics.

The most recent project of the ISRC is the Centre of Excellence in Intelligent Systems. This is a major project funded by InvestNI, the Integrated Development Fund IDF (via its facilitating body Ilex) and the University of Ulster, with a total project budget of £20.44 million. The project represents an ambitious plan to assist in addressing the technological deficit of the region, by creating a world class research and development unit in the area of computational intelligence as a strong driver for economic regeneration. As such it will, over time, assist current efforts to re-direct the local economy towards a knowledge intensive, high technology focus, and by building a strong research base in selected strategic areas, expand employment opportunities.

Commercialisation and Economic Impact

One of the fundamental premises underlying the work of the ISRC is that advanced research and development is essential for economic development, in that it permits both new business start-ups and acts as an attractive force for new inward investment. Experience has shown that the translation of advanced research and development activity into wealth and job creation is not an automatic process – other criteria need to be met. In terms of new business start-ups, the approach taken towards commercialisation of the R&D generated within the Centre is to incorporate a Business Realisation Unit, which complements the Technology and Software Incubation Centre (which has been operational on the Magee Campus for several years) and the more recent Science Park developments on the Campus. Staff of the centre are actively engaged in a substantial number of Fusion and Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects across the island of Ireland.

Utilising the Centre as a Magnet for Inward Investment and in Regional Marketing Strategies

While the encouragement of new business start-ups is a key objective of the Centre, assistance with efforts to bring inward investment to the region is also a priority. It has long been recognised that an important aspect of attracting inward investment is the proximity of a local University with advanced R&D capability. The creation of the Centre of Excellence is thus a fundamental building block in a north-west regional marketing strategy.

The ISRC aims to assist the region to become renowned as a location:

• which is at the leading edge of research into intelligent computational systems, including cognitive, medical, healthcare and entertainment robotics, autonomous systems for industrial production, and pervasive computing for civic, commercial and educational use;
• that exhibits a high level of awareness of commercial opportunities offered by the integration of different technologies (e.g. computing, electronics, multimedia, neural electronics
• where technological developments are quickly reviewed and exploited, further funding for R&D is readily accessed, there is ready access to flexible and appropriate accommodation and where there is a pool of entrepreneurs with a science and technology focus.

Summary

The ISRC seeks to:

• Be an internationally recognised, technological Centre of Excellence located in the north-west region of Ireland, with a mission to perform excellent research in computational intelligence and underpin the emerging computational intelligence and intelligent systems industry while acting as a strong, attractive force for foreign direct investment;
• Attract top quality researchers to the region and expand its reputation as a high technology regional hub;
• Underpin the economic development plans for the region in its attempt to switch from the declining textile manufacturing industries to high technology, entrepreneurial-based companies;
• Assist in the generation of a highly talented and skilled workforce, capable of generating spin-out companies that can compete in a global marketplace;
• Assist the University of Ulster its in desire to expand higher education provision in the north-west as a driver for economic regeneration;
• Complement and extend both existing and proposed technology–based initiatives for job creation, incubation and business formation in the north-west of the island of Ireland

For further information or any queries regarding the Centre please contact the Centre Director, Professor T.M. McGinnity at:

Email: tm.mcginnity@ulster.ac.uk
Web: http://isrc.infm.ulst.ac.uk
Room MG208
School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry, N. Ireland BT48 7JL
Tel. +44-(0) 28-71375417
Fax +44-(0) 28-71375570