UT faculty researchers and the DRA team hosted a two-day workshop in Washington, DC to discuss strategic autonomy needs with servicemembers from across the DOD. The “Autonomous Systems for Strategic Advantage” workshop focused identifying gaps and needs to align University research with DOD areas of critical need in trusted decision making. Over 30 professionals from across academia, defense, and industry came together to discuss the challenges of autonomous systems research, concepts, context, and applications.
New Format for Developing Research Projects
The workshop format represents a new model for merging the defense ecosystem’s key national security challenges with the University’s research capabilities. By gathering DOD representatives and UT researchers for direct dialogue, these experts can more effectively shape future collaborations and funding for basic research.
Over the summer, researchers from UT Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, and Center for Space Research travelled to the nation’s capital for the first-of-its-kind workshop.
Ufuk Topcu, Lori Magruder, David Fridovich-Keil, and Radu Marculescu led conversations on four themed panels: Trusted AI & Autonomy, Human-Machine Interfaces, Space Technologies, and Integrated Network System-of-Systems. Each panel included focused discussion groups covering a wide range of mutually important topics, current efforts, and possible research needs.
“Building sustainable research programs that help address the most pressing problems requires long-term relationships with stakeholders,” said Ufuk Topcu, Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and Director of Autonomous Systems Group. “This workshop was one of the early steps toward creating such relationships between the DOD stakeholders and UT researchers on a wide range of topics. I hope that it provided a clear sign that autonomy - as a technology and research area - permeates widely across the campus well beyond its more conventional and narrow interpretations.”
Research Themes for Future Projects
Six major fundamental research themes emerged and will be used to develop team approaches and contextualization of specific research thrusts for domain, cross-domain, or service-relevant projects:
•Low-power computation for artificial intelligence
•Methodology for integrating evidence from different domains
•Self-supervised learning in dynamic, uncertain, and adversarial environments
•New paradigm of testing and evaluation for AI-enabled autonomy
•Computationally tractable self-assessment and calibration of uncertainty in algorithms
•Risk management as functionality in trustworthy AI-enabled autonomous systems
Moving Forward - Spring 2024 Workshop at UT
"Autonomous Systems for Strategic Advantage” participants are continuing conversations that began at the workshop with one another and across their parent organizations. Additionally, UT faculty participants are planning visits to DOD labs and developing increased service member touchpoints to assist in proposal development and project support.
Defense Research Advancement is facilitating a follow-on meeting in Spring 2024 on The University of Texas at Austin main campus. Workshop participants and additional representatives will visit research labs and help refine the scopes of future research projects.
If you would like to request a PDF of the full Executive Summary from the autonomous systems workshop, please contact Research Development Officer Chris Hossfeld
If you would like to discuss organizing a workshop focused on a specific topic or theme, please contact Events Manager Owen Wright