CSAIL Spotlights
How does a bird handle the wind, hanging effortlessly while battered by gusts and darting through clusters of trees with seamless precision? Associate Professor Russ Tedrake wants to understand how birds can operate under such conditions and create machines that can do the same. His current goal is to develop an aircraft that can fly like a bird, darting through trees and narrowly avoiding obstacles during fast-paced flight. Tedrake and his research group at CSAIL, the Robot Locomotion Group, recently unveiled a video of a new computer-controlled aircraft that is able to accurately perform knife-edge turns, rolling 90 degrees to dart through an opening narrower than the aircraft’s wingspan.
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In May 2012, CSAIL announced a major new initiative to tackle the challenges of the burgeoning field known as “big data” -- data collections that are too big, growing too fast, or are too complex for existing information technology systems to handle. The announcement was made at an MIT event attended by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who simultaneously announced a new statewide initiative to establish Massachusetts as a hub of big data research.
Additionally, Intel Corporation announced that it is establishing the new Intel Science and Technology Center (ISTC) for Big Data at CSAIL.
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On May 14-15 2011, CSAIL hosted a workshop at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge, MA, sponsored by the Office of The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (formerly DDR&E). The goal of the workshop, organized by Ed Lazowska (U Washington) and Victor Zue (MIT CSAIL), was to provide perspectives on barriers to advancement and potential breakthroughs in the growing and rapidly evolving field of computer science.
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An elderly woman who lives alone needs assistance with everything from remembering to take her medicine to putting away the dishes. Her children work fulltime and are only able to assist her on nights and weekends. To assist her mother during those daytime hours when she is all alone, her daughter goes to her local printing store, designs a handy device that can help around the house, and 24 hours later delivers her mother a fully assembled and operational robot.
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You might not have to wait until 2062 to travel to work in an aerocar like George Jetson, thanks to work currently underway at CSAIL. An autonomous personal air taxi capable of ferrying you to Paris by 5pm with a flyover of London may sound futuristic, but it is a current project of CSAIL Principal Investigator Brian Williams and his Model-based Embedded and Robotic Systems (MERS) group.
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What if machines could think like us - comprehending social cues, visual prompts and spoken words just like a human would? For CSAIL Professor Patrick Winston, the Ford Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science and leader of the Genesis Group at CSAIL, uncovering the true nature of human intelligence is the next grand challenge.
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In 1974 Professor Peter Szolovits made a prediction: By the 1980s a majority of large hospitals would have adopted the use of electronic medical records. While the necessary technology did not progress as quickly as expected to allow for this transition, the U.S. government is currently making a major push to ensure that hospitals switch from paper folders stuffed with memos to a secure and efficient electronic system for collecting, storing and retrieving medical records. Now Szolovits, the leader of the Clinical Decision Making Group at CSAIL, is at the forefront of the movement to make health IT more effective and useful for both professionals and patients.
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In 2011, MIT celebrates a century and a half of excellence in education and technological innovation with a series of six MIT150 Symposia in which we will explore past milestones and look toward future advancements.
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Remember the Polaroid camera- that black box capable of spitting out an image within seconds of snapping the shutter? Once the star of social gatherings, a Polaroid camera now sits on a shelf in Bill Freeman’s office at CSAIL, a relic of a time gone by. The world of photography has transformed dramatically since Freeman worked for Polaroid in the field of electronic imaging during the 1980s. Digital cameras have since made photography an art form easily accessible to all, with images ready for viewing the moment they are captured, numerous computer programs available for editing and websites hosting platforms for millions to share their snapshots.
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It isn't everyday that a computer scientist wins one of the most coveted awards in aeronautics. But when Rick Cory started in Associate Professor Russ Tedrake's Robot Locomotion Group as a Ph.D. student, he wasn't out to conduct robotics as usual. "We were trying to think of a project that could push the limits of robot control," Cory explains. "And the idea came up of trying to build a robot that could fly like a bird. For me that was a very inspiring, fantastic idea."
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