Collaborative Research: Research Infrastructure: CCRI: ENS: Enhanced Open Networked Airborne Computing Platform

该项目旨在开发一个增强型开放式网络机载计算平台，以促进机载计算平台的设计、实现和测试，该平台无缝集成了控制、计算、通信和网络。该项目将提供基于飞轮模型的社区支持，并通过全国四个区域站点的有组织支持、实践研讨会、测试平台访问和技术用户服务来吸引和吸引社区用户。智力上的优点在于一套新的增强，以促进更先进的研究和机载计算的应用。具体而言，建议在四个主要方面加强基础设施建设。首先，硬件/中间件更新以促进分布式控制，其中包括相控阵天线，下一代移动系统和机器人操作系统（ROS） 2。二是增强通信和网络，包括软件定义无线电（SDR）、长期演进（LTE）和软件定义网络（SDN）。第三，加强机载计算服务，包括目标识别和跟踪服务、移动边缘计算（MEC）服务和机载激光雷达（光探测和测距）数据处理服务。最后，安全特性的整合，包括开发一个安全和保护隐私的联邦学习平台，以及集成安全包，以满足基本和高级的安全需求，如机密性、完整性、身份验证和安全计算。该合作项目汇集了来自北德克萨斯大学（UNT）、德克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校（UTA）、圣地亚哥州立大学（SDSU）和波多黎各大学马亚圭斯分校（UPRM）的研究人员。所有四所参与的大学都是少数民族服务（UPRM）或西班牙裔服务（UTA， UNT和SDSU）的机构，有大量未被充分代表的少数民族学生。该项目将通过K-12活动深入到当地社区，并通过组织学生设计竞赛、教程和研讨会、参与国家示范工作和吸引领域专业人士来进行广泛传播。拟议的教育和推广活动将对广泛的社区产生深远的影响，并使大量代表性不足的少数民族学生受益。拟议的增强型开放式网络机载计算平台项目将满足CISE社区许多研究人员的设计和评估需求，并有利于在应急、能源、环境和运输部门的广泛应用。项目网站https://utari.uta.edu/research/airborne/将成为访问详细设计文档、硬件和软件工具、教程、数据集、培训材料、会议和研讨会以及其他项目相关材料的门户，以在项目期间和之后扩展更广泛社区的研究能力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The project aims to develop an enhanced open networked airborne computing platform to facilitate the design, implementation, and testing of an airborne computing platform that seamlessly integrates control, computing, communication, and networking. The project will provide community support based on the flywheel model, and to attract and engage community users through organized support from four regional sites in the nation, hands-on workshops, testbed access, and technical user services. The intellectual merit lies in a new set of enhancements to facilitate more advanced research and applications of airborne computing. Specifically, the proposed infrastructure is enhanced in four major areas. First, hardware/middle-ware update to facilitate distributed control, which includes phased array antennas, next generation of mobile system, and Robot Operating System (ROS) 2. Second, enhancement of communication and networking, which include software-defined radio (SDR), long-term evolution (LTE), and software-defined networking (SDN). Third, enhancement of airborne computing services, which include the target recognition and tracking service, mobile edge computing (MEC) service, and airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data processing service. Last, the incorporation of security features, which include the development of a secure and privacy-preserving federated learning platform and integration of security packages to fulfill essential and advanced security requirements, such as confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and secure computation.This collaborative project brings together investigators from the University of North Texas (UNT), the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), San Diego State University (SDSU), and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM). All four participating universities are minority-serving (UPRM) or Hispanic-serving (UTA, UNT, and SDSU) institutions with a large number of underrepresented minority students. The project will reach out to local communities through K-12 activities, and also pursue broad dissemination through organizing student design competitions, tutorials, and workshops, participating in national demonstration efforts, and engaging domain professionals. The proposed education and outreach activities will produce a profound impact on broad communities and benefit a large number of underrepresented minority students. The proposed project on enhanced open networked airborne computing platform will address the design and evaluation needs of many researchers in the CISE community and benefit a wide range of applications in the emergency, energy, environment, and transportation sectors.The project website https://utari.uta.edu/research/airborne/ will be the portal to access detailed design documents, hardware and software tools, tutorial, datasets, training materials, conferences and workshops, and other project-related materials to extend the research capabilities of the broader community during and beyond the project span.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.