Monthly Highlights 2002

August 2002

On August 13, 14, and 15, the third annual workshop on Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems was held at NIST. This unique series brings together a multi-disciplinary group of participants from industry, academia, and government agencies to share work and requirements for measuring the performance of intelligent systems in various application domains. This year, 49 papers were presented, in addition to 3 panel discussions and 7 plenary talks. Among the notable speakers were Lotfi Zadeh (the father of fuzzy logic), Minoru Asada (Chairman of RoboCup), John Blitch (leader in development of search and rescue and military robots), and NIST's own Jim Albus. The workshop was co-sponsored by DARPA, the IEEE Control Systems Society, NASA, and held in collaboration with the IEEE Neural Networks Council.

Contacts: Elena Messina, elena.messina@nist.gov

The Demo III team including the Army Research Labs (ARL), General Dynamics Robot Systems (GDRS), and NIST demonstrated an experimental unmanned vehicle (XUV) for 4 star General (Ret) Barry R McCaffrey, the Olin Distinguished Professor of National Security Studies for the US Military Academy on August 23, 2002 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. The XUV is controlled by an implementation of RCS that was co-developed by NIST and GDRS. A commanded path was entered at an Operator Control Unit mounted in a remote HMMWV. General McCaffrey issued the start command and the XUV drove through chest high grass and on roads as it detected and avoided trees and buildings, altering the commanded path as needed. This demonstration highlighted the recent work of the Demo III program. Also in attendance were: 4 star General Paul K Kern, Commanding General Army Material Command (AMC); 2 star General Dosberg, Commanding General SBCCOM; 1 star General Craig Peterson, Deputy General SBCCOM; Mr. Neil Biamon Deputy, G-3, Current Operations for AMC; Mr. Michael Ryan, AMC Planner for Homeland Defense; Dr. Whalin, Director ARL; Ms. Jill Smith, Director WMRD; and Dr. Jon Bornstein, Deputy Program Manager ARL Robotics Program Office.

Contact: Maris Juberts, maris.juberts@nist.gov

June 2002

The RoboCupRescue League hosted their first annual competition in Fukuoka, Japan June 20-23, 2002, using Japanese versions of NIST's "Reference Test Arenas for Autonomous Mobile Robots" that they built and installed at Fukuoka Dome Stadium. This robotic urban search and rescue competition augments RoboCup's leagues of autonomous soccer playing robot teams (small size, mid size, four legged, humanoid, and simulation leagues), which have evolved considerably over the past six years of competition. The goal of the RoboCupRescue competition, and others using the NIST arena design, is to provide a proving ground for fieldable robots such as those used at the World Trade Center collapse. NIST researcher Adam Jacoff is a Co-Chairman of the RoboCup Rescue League Organizing Committee. NISTÕs Brian Weiss also played a key role in supporting the competition.

The overall RoboCup-2002 event (http://www.robocup2002.org/) attracted 188 robot teams (over 1000 researchers) from 29 countries, cheered on by 117,000 spectators over five days of competition. Ten teams (over 40 researchers) participated in the RoboCupRescue competition from countries such as Japan, Iran, Germany, New Zealand, and one team from the United States. Several different robot implementations competed including tracked vehicles, wheeled vehicles, and even a small blimp. The performance metric used for scoring encourages multiple robot teams, minimal operators, and generation of practical maps showing the location of simulated victims throughout the arenas. Two teams from Iran and Japan scored above the minimum threshold required to earn an award, with the Iranian team taking the top honors. Ironically, the competition finals and award ceremony were held the day after the tragic and deadly earthquake that struck northern Iran last month.

The Japanese versions of NIST's arenas will reside year-round at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology in Tokyo. They follow the NIST design, with changes to materials and furnishings to be representative of those typically found in Japanese buildings. Next year's RoboCupRescue competition will be held in Padova, Italy, and discussions are under way to fabricate Italian versions of the arenas for year-round use. Additional arenas are being discussed for Japan, Germany, Portugal, and two more sites in the United States. Proliferation of these arenas around the world support research in this critical domain by providing venues for practice, objective evaluation, direct comparison of performance, and international collaboration among robot researchers. They also help to raise awareness of the challenges involved in robotic search and rescue applications and inspire new researchers into the community.

Contacts: Elena Messina, elena.messina@nist.gov and Adam Jacoff, adam.jacoff@nist.gov

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) and NIST sponsored a workshop on cybersecurity for the discrete parts manufacturing industry. The workshop was held on June 27, 2002 in Dearborn, MI, and included participants from the automotive industry, their suppliers, and industrial Information Technology (IT) vendors. NIST participated through our activities in the Process Control Security Requirements Forum (PCSRF), submitting an assessment exercise for NCMS to distribute prior to the workshop to determine industrial control system vulnerabilities. Al Wavering, a MEL Division Chief, gave a presentation on the PCSRF, describing its scope and activities in the area of process control automation. Following the presentation, the participants discussed security requirements for plant floor systems, which resulted in a list of 25 "hot button" items. The group also listed assets that need to be protected, and described scenarios that demonstrate their vulnerabilities. These can serve as a starting point for the security requirements and environment documentation necessary to develop Protection Profiles under the ISO 15408 Common Criteria. Due to the sensitivity of this information, NCMS is taking measures to limit the distribution of the meeting results.

Contact: Fred Proctor, frederick.proctor@nist.gov

March 2002

Several years of continuing successes in the refinement and demonstration of 4D/RCS for the purposes of autonomous mobility for ground vehicles has led to the central role that the technology will play in the multi-billion dollar DARPA/Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. DARPA and the Army on March 2 announced the selection of the team of the Boeing Co. (Anaheim, Calif., and Seattle, Wash.) and Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) as the Lead Systems Integrator (LSI) for the concept and technology development phase of the Future Combat Systems program. Subject to negotiation, the Boeing-SAIC team will receive a $154 million award for this 16-month effort. BoeingÕs Broad Industry Announcements in the area of unmanned ground vehicles call for "software controls/processing consistent with the 4D/RCS architecture." Jim Albus, Maris Juberts and Bob Finkelstein (RTI Inc.) were funded by Boeing in Phase I of the program to help develop FCS concepts and to prepare technology roadmaps.

Contact: Maris Juberts, maris.juberts@nist.gov

February 2002

MEL helped organize and participated in an interagency meeting on Developing Secure Digital / Electronic Process Control Systems, held at the White House Conference Center February 15. The meeting was hosted by the President's Special Advisor for Cybersecurity Richard Clarke and the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, and included participation of nearly all of the Federal agencies that have a stake in process control system security, including Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, National Security Agency, OSHA, Food Drug Agency, Department of Justice, FAA, and NASA. Bill Frix of the National Security Agency delivered a NIST-NSA presentation framing the process control cybersecurity problem, which set the stage for the rest of the meeting discussion. Many agencies have a role to play in addressing this issue, and this meeting was the first step in working toward a coordinated national approach to solutions. The next step will be a public-private sector meeting to be held April 2, 2002.

Contact: Al Wavering, albert.wavering@nist.gov

January 2002

On January 9 NIST and the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) co-sponsored the fifth in a series of workshops on open architecture control for robotics. The meeting was held at the facilities of FANUC Robotics North America in Rochester Hills, Michigan. The group discussed the draft RIA Technical Report R15.04 on robot control communication, modifications to the report, and the schedule for release. Ford Motor CompanyÕs purchasing department reviewed the document and raised concerns that cost additions would result. The group agreed and noted that a "forward" to the document would clarify the issue of cost versus benefit and make it clear that the purpose of the technical report is to improve integration of robot controllers with the manufacturing enterprise, not reduce the cost of existing controllers.

General Motors (GM) staff gave a series of presentations on their experience with industrial Ethernet, notably the Ethernet/IP (Industrial Protocol) pilot installations. Ethernet is looking more and more like it will replace fieldbus networks, both between cells and within cells. Lee Featherstone, president of the industrial Ethernet group IAONA, supplemented the GM presentations with a review of his groupÕs efforts to promote Ethernet for industrial use and identify applicable standards. Detailed meeting information is available at www.isd.mel.nist.gov/projects/openarch, under "Past Meetings."

Contact: Fred Proctor, frederick.proctor@nist.gov

Monthly Highlights for 2003

Monthly Highlights for 2001

Monthly Highlights for 2000

Monthly Highlights for 1999

Date created: 4/16/2003
Last updated: 4/16/2003