News and Events
North Carolina Defense Summit: Academic Research Panel
Dr. Bhattacharya was a panelist at the North Carolina Defense Summit which was held in Raleigh, NC on September 27th 2022. Other professors from the University of North Carolina System and professionals working in defense related research were members of the panel. Dr. Bhattacharya spoke about best practices for collaboration between the Department of Defense (DoD) and universities on Artificial Intelligence research. He also listed some best practices for the DoD when working with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) like Fayetteville State University. More information about the summit can be found here.
Fayetteville State University Receives Funding From North Carolina Collaboratory
Dr. Sambit Bhattacharya recently received from the Collaboratory for his research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) drone software that aims to improve drone performance in confined and geographically complex areas during AI-led search operations. You can read more about their experience from the following article.
Fayetteville State University Students’ NASA Experience Leads to Potential Business
ISL students recently returned from a trip to California where they visited NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. While there, they also had the opportunity to meet with potential investors and mentors from NASA. During this trip they learned about patenting new technologies, writing grant proposals, and telling the “story” of their concepts. You can read more about their experience both from NASA’s press release and Fayetteville State's press release. You may also hear an interview with Dr. Bhattacharya and ISL students Grace Vincent and Khali Crawford with this link to the podcast. Their section of the interview starts at about the sixteen minute mark.
Fayetteville State Student Research Team Presents Winning Design in NASA’s University Student Design Challenge 2021-2022
Two students from Fayetteville State's Intelligent Systems Lab, Laura DeSantis and Kyle Schultz, and NCSU student Chris Arsenault, alongside their FSU faculty advisor, Sambit Bhattacharya, Ph.D, travelled to NASA’s Glenn Research Centers to present their winning project: “Improving the Design of Heat Exchangers with Artificial Intelligence.” Read more from university news site.
NASA Selects Minority-Serving Institution Proposals to Receive Support
The awardees in the first MSI Space Accelerator have been announced after a competitive application process in which they were encouraged to think like startup businesses. Fayetteville State's Intelligent Systems Laboratory included amongst winners with our proposal, “Autonomous Systems With On-Demand Inference From Perception Pipelines”. Read more from Jet Propulsion Laboratory news site
Our Team Won at NASA's MSI Space Accelerator Final!
Great news! A team from our lab has been awarded seed money and immersion in a training program for creating a startup by commercializing research results. Read more from university LinkedIn and news site.
NSF Award for Trustworthy and Socially Responsible AI
Recent progress in AI, the digital transformation of work and human communication has created a wide range of possible applications of AI. While it will take more time and effort to realize its full potential these areas, the risks of adopting AI are an urgent and important problem because it can potentially cause harm when it is prematurely deployed before being tested for trustworthiness. Our lab has received grant funding from the National Science Foundation to pursue research and education on trustworthy and socially responsible AI. Read more from university LinkedIn post and news site.
Telvin Vann and Elijah Bryant completed their Senior Design with co-advisors from LAS/DoD
The Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS) partnered with Dr. Sambit Bhattachayra, Professor of Computer Science at Fayetteville State University (FSU) and students enrolled in a Computer Science Senior Design course to devise a rendering engine that generates synthetic data on rare objects to improve the robustness of computer vision models for object detection. With the mentorship of the LAS team and Dr. Bhattacharya, the senior design students programmatically rendered over 4000 objects, including variations such as differences in object angles, shades and environments, thus dramatically increasing training datasets for objects that are underrepresented or not represented at all in an existing dataset. To demonstrate the outcome of the rendering engine, the FSU senior design students and Dr. Bhattacharya were invited to the LAS to present their research on synthetic data generation to over 100 members in the U.S. Department of Defense. This gave the senior design students the opportunity to showcase their talents on AI/ML, critical thinking, applying advanced technological approaches to problem-solving and assisted with developing a capability of significant size and impact to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Fayetteville State University Spring 2022 Computer Science senior design students and Dr. Sambit Bhattacharya, Professor of Computer Science, visited the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences to present their research to the U.S. Department of Defense (June 2022)
Graduate School and Scholarships for Students, Summer 2022
Congratulations to Grace Vincent for admission to PhD in Electrical Engineering at NC State University. She has been awarded full financial support and the Provost's Fellowship!
Congratulations to Ejijah Bryant for admission to MS in Computer Engineering at NC State University.
Congratulations to Carley Brinkley for scholarship award from the Grace Hopper Conference.
Internship Offers for Students, Summer 2022
Congratulations to the following students for being selected for internships:
Grace Vincent and Jonathan Soltren: Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA
Nathan Couch: Johnson Space Center, NASA
Ahad Qureshi: SAS Institute Inc.
Antwaun Tune: Lenovo Inc.
Gabriel Ohmes, Khali Crawford, and Laura DeSantis: Naval Research Laboratory
Elijah Bryant: Laboratory of Analytical Science at NC State University
Daniel Bigler and Carley Brinkley: North Carolina Department of Transportation
Deneen Royal, Jack Santini, and Catherine Spooner: Corvid Technologies
Team AERISS Goes to the Final Round of the NASA MITTIC 2022 Competition!
Congratulations to the MITTIC team and well deserved after months of hard work in preparing for the competition. Read more from university LinkedIn post here.
Fayetteville State Graduate Grace Vincent admitted to Doctorate Program at NCSU
23 June 2022
Fayetteville State University and ISL alumna Grace Vincent will continue her studies at North Carolina State University as an Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student. She will be studying and researching applications for Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition, and Computer Vision. Additionally, she was awarded the Provost's Doctoral Fellowship which will cover her tuition and an excess of 30k will be used to fund her research. In the meantime, she is spending the Summer at an internship with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a Computer Vision Intern working with Martian image segmentation.
DANC S&T Forum with Presentations from Vector Analytics and Fayetteville State University
Dr. Bhattacharya will present on “Use-inspired Research in AI/ML at the Intelligent Systems Lab” at the Science & Technology Forum of the Defense Alliance of North Carolina. The agenda is available here
Update on ISL Student Accomplishments
SNCURCS attendance
Khali Crawford will be attending and presenting at the SNCURS (State of North Carolina Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium) about the construction and functions of a semi-autonomous robotic tank swarm. This tank swarm would be used for exploration and terrain mapping utilizing Ultra-Wide Broadband sensors and satellite overhead. This project would assist NASA Artemis Mission, a NASA project to return to the moon by 2024.
ASGSR attendance
Ahad Qureshi attended the ASGSR (American Society for Gravitational and Space Research) conference. The conference led the discussion of plans of returning to the moon, the development of sustainable lunar habitation, and preparing the moon as a base for the exploration of Mars. The topic the conference used as the focus to achieve the aforementioned goals was space biology, the study of biology when exposed to the effects of deep space for a long duration of time.
North Carolina Department of Transportation Research & Innovation Summit – 2021
Dr. Bhattacharya presented on the topic of “Deep Learning Software for Traffic State Prediction” at the Summit hosted by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. The recorded presentation is available under “NC Transportation Center of Excellence on Mobility and Reducing Congestion” on the agenda page
Dr. Bhattacharya was a speaker at the TechNet Symposium
The goal of the TechNet Symposium is to allow a forum to demonstrate new, innovative ideas and share best practices that promote valuable results to technology challenges faced by our military today, especially in the Fort Bragg area. This year the symposium was held in the Emerging Technology Institute (ETI) in Red Springs, NC on September 16 – 17. Dr. Bhattacharya speech titled Emerging Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Neural Networks was scheduled for September 16th beginning at 10 am. For more details see technetfortbragg.com and bizfayetteville.com.
Fayetteville State University Wins NASA Grant to Support Artemis Space Technology
Fayetteville State University is one of seven universities which has been selected for grant supported research to move forward NASA’s Artemis mission. FSU’s research project titled Active and On-demand Multi Robot Perception (AOMRP) aims to develop multi-robot perception, a technology that utilizes highly specialized image sensors, to support NASA’s use of autonomous multi-robot systems performing scouting missions on the surface of the Moon or other planets. This project which will be hosted by the ISL builds upon previous work in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at the lab. The award was announced at the site. This is the FSU News release about the award.
DoD Announces Winners of the Fiscal Year 2020 Nunn-Perry Award with Fayetteville State University as Partner in the DoD Mentor Protégé Program
The Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) recently awarded Booz Allen and Masego a 2020 Nunn-Perry Award for collaboration and impactful innovation under the DoD Mentor Protege Program (MPP) and development of the Masego Advanced Demographic Attribution (ADA) Data as a Service capability, with Fayetteville State University (FSU) provided critical support in partnership with Booz Allen and Masego. Two of the FSU student team leads were hired by Masego and have continued to support the project beyond graduation. The ISL provided on-site computational resources including dedicated and special-purpose hardware and software which were crucial to FSU's critical support in this partnership. The award was announced at the site. The link to the FSU News release site is FSU sites.
Students win Research Scholarship
Fall 2020 to Spring 2021
Grace Vincent and Nkombe Maro have been awarded a scholarship by the NC Space Grant’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship program to support their research in the ISL lab. Grace and Nkombe will work on the applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for time-series predictions for Manufacturing and Metrology
Fayetteville State University AI Workshop
July 20 - 24, 2020
Students and faculty will host a workshop on AI at Fayetteville State University. Click here for the agenda.
Workshop materials including slides of keynotes, notebooks, and data files can be accessed from the Workshop Github Repository
Center of Excellence funded by the North Carolina Department of Transportation
July 20 - 24, 2020
The North Carolina Department of Transportation has awarded funds to create University Research Centers of Excellence (CoE). As part of the CoE for Enhancing Mobility and Reducing Congestion established at North Carolina State University (NCSU), researchers from the ISL lab will work on the project titled Transportation Deep Learning Software for Traffic State Prediction. Read more from the WRAL Tech Wire news article.
Students Win US Department of Homeland Security Internship Offers
Summer 2020
Two students, Grace Vincent and Raymond Kimble have received offers of summer internship at the Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) located in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The CRC is funded by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). During this DHS sponsored internship Grace and Raymond will develop computational approaches to increase the accuracy of storm surge prediction in coastal areas of the US, specifically in North Carolina.
Student wins Research Scholarship
Summer 2020 to summer 2021
Joshua Hilbish has been awarded a scholarship by the NC Space Grant’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship program to support his research in the ISL lab. Joshua will work on the applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Manufacturing and Metrology
Students Participate in NanoTechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge
Spring and Summer 2020
Two students, Germaine Gregory and Raymond Kimble are participating in the 2020 NanoTechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge – Multicultural and Underrepresented Nanoscience Initiative (NTEC – MUNI). NTEC-MUNI 2020 is supported by Virginia Tech’s NSF-funded National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology (NanoEarth). Winning teams receive a cash award to help develop their concept as well as business development mentorship for their innovative idea. For more details, visit NTEC-MUNI
AAAI Symposium
March 23 - 25, 2020
Dr. Bhattacharya will present research at the Spring 2020 Symposium of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Click here to visit the AAAI Symposium.
Read papers and presentation slides, specifically “Physics-Guided Machine Learning for Self-Aware Machining” at the Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing symposium site.
Booz Allen / Masego Meeting
February 20 - 21, 2020
Dr. Bhattacharya and his students attended meetings with Booz Allen and Masego in Virginia
Emerging Researchers Network conference
February 6 - 8, 2020
Dr. Czejdo and one of our students, Frank Penhallegon, attended ERN. Click here to visit ERN
iNaCoMM 2019
December 5 - 7, 2019
Dr. Bhattacharya was invited to be a keynote speaker at iNaCoMM in India. Click here to visit iNaCoMM2019
GEOINTegration Summit
September 27 - 28, 2019
Dr. Bhattacharya was been invited to be a speaker at the GEOINTegration Summit. He participated in the discussion entitled: Curriculum Design Through Collaboration and Integration. Visit the GeoINTegration Summit website.
Booz Allen and Masego, Inc. Career Development
September 23, 2019
Booz Allen Hamilton and Masego, Inc. visited our campus to talk to students about career opportunities at their respective companies, and with the companies in their extensive network.
CyberCarpentry 2019
July 16-27, 2019
Dr. Bhattacharya was invited to teach an NVIDIA class in Image Captioning and Artificial Intelligence at the Cyber Carpentry symposium in Chapel Hill, NC.
CSAM Annual Meeting
May 14-15, 2019
Dr. Bhattacharya and the CSAM students attended the annual meeting for the CSAM project in Charlotte, NC. While there, the students presented their recent work in a poster session.
Masego Research Training
Apr 26, 2019
Masego, Inc. came to our campus in the afternoon for a workshop to train the students who will be participating in our GEODATA project over the summer. The training covered information retrieval strategies, as well as ArcGIS usage. The information gathered is to be standardized (as defined by Masego, Inc.) and then attributed to existing geospatial locations.
Booz Allen and Masego, Inc. Career Development
Apr 26, 2019
Booz Allen Hamilton and Masego, Inc. visited our campus in the morning to talk to students about career opportunities at their companies, and with the companies in their extensive network. They also discussed ways for students to prepare themselves for the job they want.
North Carolina Space Symposium
Apr 5, 2019
Kesharra West, Jordan Hupp and Catherine Spooner presented their work in a poster presentation at the NC Space Symposium in Raleigh, NC.
Visit the NC Space Symposium
Fayetteville State University Symposium
Apr 5, 2019
Several of our students attended the FSU Symposium in Fayetteville, NC to present their recent work. Dalisha Rivera-Rodriguez, Jeremiah Prieto and Kevin Kabbes presented their recent work in an oral presentation. Elise Olivolo, Germaine Gregory and Raymond Kimble presented their recent work in a poster presentation.
Visit the FSU Symposium
Panel: Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics: Army Questions to Answer, Industry Trends, and How Industry Can Help the Army Leverage AI.
Mar 26, 2019
Dr. Bhattacharya was a panelist at the Ft. Bragg Technet Conference, in Fayetteville, NC.
Visit the Ft. Bragg Technet