Network-Embedded Sensing and Control: Applications and Application Requirements

Tariq Samad
Honeywell Labs
Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.
tariq.samad@honeywell.com

The first part of my talk will cover some recent commercially successful applications of networked and embedded sensing and control solutions. These include applications in the process industries, home health care, and building management systems.  In these products and solutions, technological advances in sensors, wireless, networks, and knowledge services have enabled new ways of solving outstanding societal and industry problems. Yet in many ways the current state-of-the-practice has just scratched the surface of technological possibility.  Realizing the visions that many of us harbor for distributed sensor networks, however, will require mapping technical benefits to economic value; the second part of the presentation discusses some of the complexities that arise in this process.  Finally, I will present some recent research results in networked sensing for a military application--urban surveillance with networked UAVs.  This research is still just that, but by discussing it in the context of key application requirements I hope to illustrate that an intimate connection between the two can be achieved.

Tariq Samad is a Corporate Fellow with Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions.  He has been with various R&D organizations in Honeywell for 19 years, during which time he has been involved in a number of projects that have explored applications of intelligent systems and intelligent control technologies to domains such as autonomous aircraft, building and facility management, power system security, and process monitoring and control. He was the editor-in-chief of IEEE Control Systems Magazine from 1998 to 2003 and currently serves on the editorial boards of Control Engineering Practice and Neural Processing Letters. He has published about 100 articles in books, journals, and conference proceedings and he holds 11 patents with others pending. Dr. Samad is a Fellow of the IEEE and the recipient of an IEEE Third Millennium Medal and of a Distinguished Member Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society.  He received a B.S. degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.