Instrumentation for the Computational and Engineering Sciences

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 and the Department of Defense (DoD) Appropriations Act for 2015 allocated $20M to assist Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI). The program aims to (a) enhance research programs and capabilities in scientific and engineering disciplines critical to the national security functions of DoD; (b) enhance the capacity of HBCU/MI to participate in defense research programs and activities; and (c) increase the number of graduates, including underrepresented minorities, in field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that are important to the defense mission. The FY 2016 DoD Research and Education Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI) solicited proposals from single investigators at HBCUs and MIs for the acquisition equipment and instrumentation to enhance research capabilities and STEM education in scientific areas relevant to scientific areas important to one or more the three defense research offices, namely: Army Research Office (ARO); Office of Naval Research (ONR); and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). The acquired system at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), will support Department of Defense (DoD) research interests in robotics, computer vision and networking with emphasis on multi-robot/sensor localization, mapping and navigation applied to autonomous robotic systems for such tasks as large area exploration and data gathering, surveillance, 3D reconstruction; and through fundamental research in: i) the computer modeling, design, formation and characterization of novel nanostructured materials and nanodevices; and ii) Low-to-medium-energy nuclear and hypernuclear few body physics. These researches will be accomplished with the requested SGI UV3000 computer. the requested equipment will benefit multiple departments and will be able to leverage the proposing PIsÕ particular expertise. Users in other departments will also benefit from the requested equipment and will have the opportunity to participate in research and educational activities in nationally recognized, computationally driven research programs across multiple areas.