RII Track 2 FEC: Building Research Infrastructure and Workforce in Edge Artificial Intelligence

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) currently requires access to the internet and very large and complex remote computers for making decisions and predictions. This causes long delays and privacy and security concerns. The latest techniques in AI, known as “Edge AI”, avoid these problems by collecting and analyzing data directly on cameras, smart phones, and wearable devices.

However, Edge AI is still in its infancy and there are several important technical problems that need to be solved. This Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-2 Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (RII Track-2 FEC) award is a collaboration between six universities (including two minority-serving institutions) and several private-sector partners in Alabama, Arkansas, and North Dakota.

As a test of the project's new technology, the project team will build a smart wearable device to predict the onset of diabetes by monitoring a patient's own breath without the need for a doctor to interpret the results. It will provide research training opportunities for advanced college students and will also train high-school teachers in lessons to educate their own students in the principles of Edge AI to seed the future US workforce in these essential concepts for tomorrow’s world.

The goal of this RII Track-2 FEC award is to develop integrated research infrastructure and workforce in Edge AI. Fundamental contributions and technical innovations to be developed by the team include: (i) light-weight AI-empowered reasoning and machine learning algorithms for edge platforms; (ii) a new Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) design methodology to enable AI ASICs with ultra-low power, reconfigurability, and short development cycles; (iii) a sensor device platform for Edge AI based on novel functionalized nano-scaled sensing materials with nano-3D printing techniques; and (iv) an Edge AI device platform exploiting the previous advances to meet the requirements of different use cases.

Based on the developed infrastructure, targeting the use case of diabetes care, the team will design, prototype, and test a low-cost smart wearable device for personalized diabetes management. The developed wearable diabetes device will enable significant cost reduction and high power efficiency compared to existing techniques. The leading institution is the University of South Alabama; the collaborating institutions are North Dakota State University, the University of Arkansas, the University of North Dakota, Alabama A&M University, and Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College.

The team will work closely with multiple industry partners to adopt and adapt the developed Edge AI infrastructure in different use cases. Research outcomes of this project will accelerate the development of Edge AI and will increase the competitiveness of the United States in AI. Also, this project will integrate research, education, and workforce development in order to provide effective training at multiple levels.

The project will develop an Education-to-Workforce Pipeline from high school to undergraduate, graduate, Post-Doctoral training, junior faculty, and industry practitioners.

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.