2021 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition Self-Drive ACTor team with their first-place winner.

Among the exciting subsets of Artificial Intelligence is robotics. Dr. Chan-Jin (CJ) Chung, professor of Computer Science, Director of CS Robotics Labs, and founder of Robofest, explained that he uses robotics to teach many subjects related to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics), including basic programming skills.  

Because they’re really computers, we think of robots as 20th century phenomena. “Although the science of robotics only came about in the 20th century,” says thomasnet.com, “the history of robots and human-invented automation has a much lengthier past. In fact, the ancient Greek engineer Hero of Alexandria produced two texts, Pneumatica and Automata, that testify to the existence of hundreds of different kinds of “wonder” machines capable of automated movement. Of course, the evolution of robots in the 20th and 21st centuries has advanced radically to include machines capable of assembling other machines and even robots that can be mistaken for human beings.”

The word “Robotics” came from a 1941 science fiction short story by author Isaac Asimov in the publication Astounding Science Fiction. But it’s not at all fiction to Chung and his students! Chung teaches courses in Intelligent Robotics and Deep Learning, which use the human brain as a model to solve problems. His students write computer programs for the robot to download and test their work. “In that way,” said Chung, “students can see the results immediately and can learn how to correct errors in the coding faster and better.” 

An autonomous vehicle is a good example of a robot. All around the vehicle are sensors that collect data and act according to the data it collects. Chung and his students compete in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle International Competition. Preparing for this competition annually gives students a real learning opportunity. Chung says, “Robots motivate students. Robots are moving, are interactive, and students can learn more through robots because it’s hands-on, mind-on, and body-on learning!” Students also learn how to work as a team to produce their robotic vehicle. It’s also an avenue to develop leadership skills. Chung was awarded an NSF grant in February 2022 for undergraduate research projects in self-drive algorithms. His teaching of Robotics and engagement extends also to elementary and high school students, for whom he created Robofest in 1999 and which is hosted by LTU.

In recent years, cyber attacks have rocked the world of banking and credit cards, a state’s water system, and even the cyber world itself. LTU added Cybersecurity along with AI to the computer science curriculum in 2020. Dr. Tao Liu focuses on this “hot” field in a way that helps students learn the concept of cybersecurity as well as the mechanisms, the hardware and software. “We must learn the hardware and the coding to help us understand how to create defense systems,” Liu said. That’s the unique research that has captured Liu’s attention lately. He calls it “Full-Stack Machine Learning System Security Research.” He digs into the computer’s different layers to identify its potential weaknesses to build an effective defense accordingly. 

Liu combines research with his teaching. In his CRE cybersecurity course, undergraduate students “use a real attack environment and then create ways to mitigate damage and build a defense against future attacks,” Liu described. 

Assistant Professor Dr. Oriehi (Destiny) Anyaiwe’s approach to teaching might surprise some people but it honors the LTU motto of “Theory and Practice.“ “Teaching comes naturally to me,” he said. “And CRE is a type of teaching philosophy that works very well with my students, because as they’re learning the theory, they’re practicing. I like ‘practical.’”  

He like to see students “fail!” “Of course, I don’t mean ‘fail’ the course, but ‘fail’ in the sense that if the program or a proposed solution doesn’t work, I like to see them sweat it out in finding the reason for the failure and how a working solution can be developed,” he explained.

"This is how we break new ground. When we break new ground, we can break old parameters and find new solutions. Students get a deeper examination of their area of study this way. They can sit down tomorrow and solve a problem because they know how to do the research to find out what happened and how to fix it."

Anyaiwe’s research interests include data science, machine learning and in general topics that improve the quality of life and health. He believes that “mathematics is fundamental” and computer scientists need to be able to express themselves mathematically. “Without math, it is difficult to write algorithms. My methodology,” he explained, “helps to learn how to code and get better and better at it.” 

He believes that computer science helps to improve our world. There are pressing human problems that needs to be addressed. “Alzheimer’s Disease has no politics. There is no diagnostic methodology or ‘tool kit’ to diagnose this terrible disease. He and his co-researchers are “using saliva to identify and understand neurological activities and degradation in the brain. Does a person of 20, 40, 60 years old have a different saliva composition and is this a determinant?” he’s asking, “and can computer science and machine learning be used to figure that out?”

Sydney Ross and Kim Lam are two of Anyaiwe’s students, both enrolled in LTU’s 4 + 1 computer science program. In four and a half years, 4 + 1 students obtain both a BS and an MS in Computer Science. 

Both students were enrolled in Anyaiwe’s Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition class for which they researched the accuracy of a set of “big data” concerning perfusion. Ross said, “I enjoyed learning different languages and seeing how each handled the data.” Lam agreed and added, “In research, it’s important to think out of the box. We broke the data into two groups, one to ‘train’ the model and the other to test the accuracy of the model.” Both students, who have entered the last semester of their 4 + 1 program, believe that these project-based projects indeed put theory to practice.

by Renée Ahee