Two decades of achievement

The Institute for Systems Research was founded in 1985 as the Systems Research Center (SRC) at the University of Maryland and Harvard University, and was established by a National Science Foundation grant as one of the first six NSF Engineering Research Centers. The driving motivation for the SRC was to advance the efficient design and control of complex large-scale, spatially distributed engineering systems. Such systems, operating at multiple time-scales and under multiple criteria, are needed to perform complex functions in high technology services and industry. Progress in this direction could be achieved only through cross-disciplinary research and educational programs in academia pursued in collaboration with industry and government. Specifically, there was a need for integrating analytical and computational techniques of control and communication engineering with advances in computer hardware and software, using refined system-level design tools.

To this end, the research and educational programs of the SRC, during its first eight years, grew on a foundation of four interrelated thrust areas, each focusing on a particular domain of applied engineering systems: intelligent servomechanisms; chemical process systems; manufacturing systems; and communication and signal processing systems. A fifth thrust area of systems integration methodologies and tools served as a prime connecting link. Facilitated by state-of-the-art constituent laboratories, SRC faculty, research scientists and students at Maryland and Harvard developed a cross-disciplinary approach to research and education, making many notable contributions. Research contributions included new algorithms and software for constrained optimization with guaranteed global convergence; fundamental results in the modeling and control of interconnected mechanical systems; novel techniques for the management and performance evaluation of communication networks; mapping and elucidation of the tonotopic organization of the auditory cortex; feedback control techniques for polymer reactors; and parallel algorithms for graph problems. Accompanying achievements included:

• The discovery of bifurcation and control of stall scenarios for axial compressor engines;
• Development of Motion Description Languages in the Harvard Robotics Laboratory and the Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory;
• Design and fabrication of the Modular Dextrous Hand;
• Cellular decomposition of flexible production lines using group technology;
• Development of neural network models for the input-output behavior and model predictive control of chemical processes;
• High quality joint source-channel coding of images and related modem technologies for voice and data;
• Protocols for mobile adhoc wireless networks; and
• Efficient algorithms and software for manufacturing process planning.

In 1992, the SRC became the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), a permanent institute at the University of Maryland. Over the next decade, its programs, linking several departments at Maryland and Harvard, evolved to support its broader strategic plan for developing fundamental knowledge and technologies of integrated design. Foci of this effort include complex engineered systems with control, communication, and biological or biologically-inspired subsystems. The initial emphasis during this period was on three thrust areas linked by common systems concepts, methods and algorithms:
• Intelligent Control Systems: The design of robust control systems, particularly motion control systems, flight controllers for aerospace systems, and chemical processes and industrial control systems.
• Intelligent Signal Processing and Communication Systems: the modeling, design and control of wireless and high-speed communication networks, the integration of signal processing and signal understanding, and the integration of signal processing and communication for control.
• Systems Integration Methodology: the development of models for system complexity, architectures for control and communication systems, integration of symbolic and numeric computing, integration of continuous and discrete optimization with AI techniques, and computer-aided design of manufacturing resource planning systems.

Driven by emerging communication network technologies, ISR researchers foresaw the promise held by seamlessly connecting terrestrial and satellite systems. The Center for Satellite and Hybrid Communication Networks (CSHCN) was established within ISR by NASA as one of its Centers for the Commercial Development of Space. Now known as the Maryland Hybrid Networks Center (HyNet), its primary focus is to develop hybrid networks that link satellite and wireless systems with telephone, cable and cellular systems and the Internet.

ISR also proceeded to develop key strengths in the area of semiconductor manufacturing processes which paved the way for the current emphasis on MEMS and Nanotechnologies. Close collaboration with industry and national consortia made for the effective transfer of ISR technologies. Furthermore, ISR initiated a broadening of its scope through reaching out to the biological sciences and operations research.

Through the latter half of the 1990s to the present, ISR researchers have also created other centers of research collaboration with funding from NSF, DOD and NIH, to address challenging problems at the interface between system science and a variety of technology-oriented disciplines. Examples include the MURI Center on Smart Structures and NEXTOR, a multi-partner Federal Aviation Administration center headquartered in the ISR that is devoted to air traffic scheduling.
Drawing on its extensive experience in creating and nurturing collaborative teams, the ISR looks forward to making contributions in emerging disciplines. The future is bright for approaches rooted in system science and engineering.